


How to Create a Monster

by andthekitchensink



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Badass Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Don't use without permission!, Genderfluid Connor, Gift Fic, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Binary Connor, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Undercover Funtimes and Danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthekitchensink/pseuds/andthekitchensink
Summary: After the peaceful android revolution, the androids are safe for the time being. Safe being a misnomer - with the bureaucratic wheels of human society turning at a snail's pace, who knows if android rights will ever be a thing.In the midst of this, two friends grow closer. Just when things seem like they're moving onto something different, one of them is sent away on an undercover mission so secret, so dangerous, so important that the other can't know anything about it.Fast forward three months, when things take a turn for the unexpected.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 36
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThereBeWhalesHere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereBeWhalesHere/gifts).



> This is the first part of my raffle fic prize for Liss!
> 
> This story's structured a bit different from my other ones, in that ever part/chapter has one POV set in 'present time' and one where we look back on past events. The past events are in all-italics. Hope that helps readability and flow.
> 
> Note, the first: there are some sections where lines are in italics - this is simply to indicate overheard speech, or someone being in another room.
> 
> Note, the second: this is me being completely self-indulgent in writing what I want to read (but when do I ever write differently? ;) ) I do hope you enjoy it - and especially you, Liss!

* * *

Of all the things Hank expected of a normal day working homicide at the DPD’s own Central Station, it was nowhere near what was to unfold in the coming hour. The past few months he’d been working on things, like establishing more of a functional routine, which involved less drinking (alcohol, that is) and more of an adherence to the way of things. Such as getting up at a reasonable hour, going to work, and not skipping actual meals in favor of instant noodle cups. This morning he’d even clocked in early enough to snag a donut from Ben’s ever present box, the only concession either of them wanted to make to the old pastry munching cop stereotype. They chatted between paperwork, sitting back to back like they always had, and Hank was actually enjoying the quiet bustle of the bullpen. Everyone was taking the opportunity to get shit done before they were called back out again, and you never knew when you’d get the call from dispatch. Imagine that - Lieutenant Hank-fucking-Anderson, enjoying a bit of tedious paperwork. 

Most mornings, business at Central Station was of the quiet, orderly kind. But this morning, that was about to change, and it did so with a bang.

The bullpen, and station proper, was separated from the front desk by nothing more than a wall, and an open entryway to the side. This meant that practically the entire station knew when one of the more colorful elements of society was making a social call. Most people waited in line to see the receptionist on duty, then sat down like good, law abiding citizens that valued the concepts of law and order. But then there were the exceptions to the rule. The ones whose voices carried well into the farthest depths of the station.

_‘I demand to speak to whoever’s in charge! No, I will NOT wait for my turn, I want to report a crime, you dumb bitch--’_

Ben chuckled behind him, low and cynical. “Sounds like someone’s waving the ol’ privilege card out there.”

“Mhmm…” Hank kept his head down, only listening with a fraction of attention. This wasn’t the first noble citizen, born that way or self-made, that felt their status in society _behooved_ them of a certain leeway. Such as cutting ahead of all the plebs waiting in line.

_‘--spilled coffee all over my suit, and then stole my cab! I want him arrested! Do you have any idea what this cost? It’s worth more than you make IN A YEAR--’_

Ben’s amusement grew the angrier Mr Richie Rich got, and Hank couldn’t help but smirk. It was catching - until it wasn’t, anymore; until things escalated out in the reception area, and Miller suddenly rushed into the fray. It sounded like World War III had erupted out there, people screaming in all that commotion. The bullpen went deathly quiet, people on their feet and ready to act at a moment’s notice, even Fowler stepping out of his office - and then Officer Miller came back, he and Officer Chen escorting the offended citizen to the holding cells to cool off.

In retrospect, it might have been the sound of impossibly high heels clicking against the polished stone floors that threw him off the scent. It might have been the buzzcut, or that crisp, tailored suit that looked every bit like it cost more than he made in a year. Or the nails, long enough to file into tiny coffin shapes, pearlescent blue: exclusive. It might have been the jingle-jangle of jewelry, the sparkle over a bare chest. Who in their right mind goes out wearing nothing but layers and layers of _necklaces_ underneath a suit jacket in early March, and somehow ends up looking like a million dollars?

In one word?

Connor.

***

_Three months earlier…_

_***_

_It was a fairly normal night, come early December. As had become their unofficial routine, Connor had showed up after Hank’s shift for a bit of company. Hank never asked how he knew when he was home, and Connor never told him he could watch his house for hours, just waiting. It seemed inappropriate, but not in any way he could articulate. In any case, it was inappropriate from a human perspective, which was all the reason Connor needed not to inform his friend of his late night stakeouts. He wouldn’t want to be misunderstood, or taken for a stalker. He just...kept an eye on the house while Hank was away. Made sure Sumo was okay, and no one was getting ideas about breaking and entering. Perfectly normal, innocent things._

_They sat on Hank’s couch, watching the game, or more listening to it. Sumo had taken up position right by his side, big head resting on his lap. Perfect for ear scratches and cuddles. Hank was enjoying a bowl of chicken soup with dumplings, and as much as Connor could claim he watched the game, the truth of it was his eyes may have been squarely on the holo tv, but his 3D imaging grid kept Hank in his line of sight at all times._

_“Well?” Hank said between munching, wiping over his mouth with the back of his hand._

_It would appear he’d missed a query. Connor tilted his head. “Well, what, Lieutenant?”_

_“I’m asking if you wanna be my Plus one for the Christmas carnage also known as the DPD office party. You’re not likely to get an invitation, and...you know. Seems only right you get to join in the celebrations.”_

_It was at times like these Connor felt grateful Hank’s preferred spot on the couch was to the far left of him, because the question was enough to send his LED whirring, changing over to red. While it didn’t sound like Hank was asking him out on a date, he had precious little to go on, aside from fictional representations of how couples became...couples. Humans supposedly went on dates to assess potential partners, but Hank’s phrasing and tone of voice implied that wasn’t his aim. All the fictitious romances in the world couldn’t prepare him for the mixed signals wreaking havoc with his system._

_He opted for a neutral approach, which seemed only reasonable from a self preservation POV. “You just called it ‘carnage’, Hank.”_

_His powers of observation drew a grin to his friend’s lips. The sight made his mind palace sparkle, bright blue._

_“I hate office parties…” Hank admitted, wry but honest. “And it’s not like it’s a date-- thing. A_ date _date, it’s… Well. We’re partners. I don’t care if you’re not an official employee of the department. And, I mean-- if you want to, you should get to enjoy the full brunt of human culture. So you know what_ not _to do when you figure out your own traditions.”_

 _As explanations went, it cleared up some of his question marks -_ partners, ie not a romantic date. Hank wants to include me, on my own terms. _\- It was both charmingly practical and somewhat disheartening. He’d been wondering about the practical application of mistletoe for weeks now. He would have to come to terms with being in love with a human who showed minus zero interest in romance, while taking part of his life as best he could. It was very probably for the best. Connor had no idea what he thought of romance, as seen from a human perspective. Better not to jump in at the deep end only to find out you can’t swim. Better not tell your best friend you may or may not be infatuated beyond comprehension and then it turns out you just_ really _love him as a friend._

_“Ah.” Connor said, nodding just the once. Sumo looked up into his eyes with perfect puppy adoration. He only hoped he wasn’t staring into his own reflection. That would be difficult to explain, if someone caught him looking at Hank like this._

_“Alright. When you put it that way…”_

_It was the right thing to say. Hank lit up like a Christmas tree decked out for the coming Holidays. “Yeah? You’ll be my Plus one?”_

_“How can I reject such a scintillating offer?”_

_It was settled. Connor would get another taste of the human experience, and Hank actually seemed to look forward to it. Perhaps the holidays wouldn’t be quite so painful, if he lived vicariously through Connor’s first ever experience. It was a plan he was willing to stick to - but only a few days later, Fowler called him in for a meeting that would change everything._

_***_

_He was asked to go undercover, and get close to what was possibly the most dangerous man in all of Michigan - a former entrepreneur of the android sex industry turned drug baron that always got away Scot free of any charges laid against him. Nicholas, ‘Nico’, Barnes. Nonstick Nick, the press called him, but the name belied his ruthless nature._

_“His known associates have a tendency to end up in the Detroit River,” Fowler informed him. “I don’t want to ask this of you, but you’re our best shot at taking him down. He can smell a cop from a mile away, but...this is what you were designed for, right? I hate to ask, but--”_

_“Yes, Captain. I was designed to seamlessly integrate into any social context or population.”_

_The week before the office party, Connor had to go away, leaving Hank in Need to Know limbo. Everything about the case was so secret, no one but Fowler knew he was their undercover agent. It spanned several jurisdictions across the state, as well as several branches of law enforcement, but Connor was going in solo. No point of contact, bar Fowler. His first mission: get in._

_***_

_Several officers of varying rank had tried to sneak their way into the good graces of Mr Barnes and his associates, but all their efforts had failed. It took Connor all of ten seconds to surmise that Fowler had the right idea about the man behind what had turned into the biggest drug industry since the 1990’s. Barnes could ‘smell a cop from a mile away’. Not because the police officers in question were bad at their job, not necessarily. Rookies as well as seasoned veterans had tried and failed. Either their manufactured background wasn’t airtight enough, or perhaps they flinched where a street kid wouldn’t - either way, their covers never panned out. The closest they got were low level thugs, never privy to the details behind the operation. They certainly never ferreted out anything significant enough to bring the leader to a conviction._

_Going through the media coverage of the past few years, Barnes had always been a slippery customer, as you would expect from someone who bartered in android sex. He’d been in on the Red Ice scene since the beginning, laundering the money from that side of his entrepreneurship through his very legal sex clubs, like Club Eden. Like Fowler said, nothing ever stuck. His name was never on any legal documents, he never met with the dealers, but handled everything through proxies. It was like a game of six steps of separation - he knew a guy who knew a guy, who happened to know a guy with a lab. And so it went on._

_But there was something else that caught the attention of the media. Something that the undercover assets had tried to exploit as well. Barnes liked to surround himself with the young and beautiful. Every night, he had a new trophy by his side. All of them were incredibly attractive, by human standards. Perfectly symmetrical, perfect white smiles, perfect skin, perfectly in keeping with masculine and feminine ideals. Perfectly predictable._

_What do you give someone who has everything they want, Connor wondered, though he knew the answer already. It was an age old question, with a corresponding answer as old as time._

_You take something they didn’t know they wanted, and dangle it in front of them. Just...out...of reach._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present time, Hank becomes privy to something he shouldn't.
> 
> In the past, Connor engages phase one of his undercover mission.

* * *

“Pinch me,” Hank whispered to Collins, who stood just as stunned, right there beside him, watching as Connor - his-- Connor, _their_ Connor, the only Connor connected to Homicide - glared daggers at everyone in the room.

“Whaddayalookin’atchalittlepissants,” he hissed, ( _hissed!_ ), across the room loud enough for everyone to hear, then turned his attention back to Miller and Chen, who looked just as confused. “Take your hands _off_ me, I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“Me too,” said Ben, the pair of them staring at the spectacle. They both reached out, the one giving the other a pinch to the arm.

Hank shook his head. “Nope. Not dreamin’.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” cursed Collins. Up on his platform, Fowler watched the proceedings like a hawk before turning back into his office. Not ten seconds later, Fowler reemerged from his glass box with a very thick folder clamped under his arm, and headed for the holding cells.

“Uh, Captain?” Hank tried - and failed. Miserably.

“Not in a million years, Anderson. You sit your ass down, or I’ll do it for you.”

“Right.”

Ben nodded. “Right. Okay.”

Neither one of them did, of course, because this was more than anyone had (officially*) heard from Connor in almost three months. (*Every now and then, Hank’s phone would light up with a text from an unknown number, with straightforward little messages. December 24th, the text wished him a Merry Christmas, hoping he didn’t spend it alone, and to give Sumo a nice belly rub. New Years, it was much the same, with well wishings including Sumo. The messages were a one way street, like little digital sticky notes. No matter what Hank tried, he couldn’t figure out how to bypass the block. He simply couldn’t text him back. It was Connor, reaching out. He knew it. It had to be him. And every time his phone buzzed, his heart skipped a beat. It had been weeks since his last secret message...)

The chaotic energy kept pouring from the holding cells, but soon enough there came Fowler, escorting a much calmer Connor to the interrogation room. Miller and Chen slipped into the bullpen from the other end. The four of them met around the crisp white island sectioning off the room into two units. “That _is_ who I think it is, right?” Miller said, hushed but urgent.

“Fowler said they’d go talk somewhere more quiet,” Chen filled in. “And he’s still playing the prissy b--”

There were very few alternatives for how to end that word, but Hank for one was glad no one tried to fill in the blanks. It was plain enough exactly what role Connor was playing. “Interrogation 1’s quiet,” he said.

They say great minds think alike, and in that moment all four of them had the same idea. They moved as one to Observation Room #1, Hank using his keycard to unlock the door. They slipped inside, just in time to see one of the strangest things in their combined careers. Fowler had his pad out, fingers tapping at the screen, remotely shutting down the Observation Room’s system. No video feed recording the interview, no computer access to bring up data on the witness or suspect in question. Nothing. Everything went dark, and blank.

“He’s locking it down,” Chen said out loud what everyone else was thinking. But the question they all wanted to ask hovered in the air around them.

_‘Why would Fowler do that?’_

Connor was draped over the interviewee chair like an artful exhibit of an 80’s scene kid, giving the older officers present a blast from the past - but the moment Fowler set the tablet down, it was like flipping a switch. Connor sat up straight, the arrogant smirk completely erased from his pitchblack lips.

_“I apologize for the ruse, Captain, sir, I--”_ He straightened further, stretching his neck, hands smoothing down the front of his coffee stained suit jacket, in want of a tie he wasn’t currently wearing.

_“That’s quite alright, Detective,”_ said Fowler, and now that the charade was over with, Hank would’ve sworn he looked amused. _“Now, tell me why you felt the need for such an entrance.”_

Connor’s lips thinned out over his teeth in a perfect display of understated nerves. _“It’s worse than we thought. He’s talking about expanding his trade, but with the Thirium shortage he’s sending his people on scavenger hunts at the dumps. They’re running out of supplies._ ”

Hank had a sinking feeling about this whole mess. Need to Know basis, _fuck that_ , this was their friend in there, about to drop a bombshell that no one wanted. It was nuclear fallout time.

_“Captain,”_ Connor said, voice lowered with urgency. _“He’s talking about harvesting blue blood from fully functioning androids.”_

“Holy shit,” Collins breathed out loud. Whether you were smack dab in the android rights camp or not, like the four of them were (six of them, counting the ones in the other room), you couldn’t call that anything but sinister. Worse yet, for as long as androids lacked legislated citizenship (they weren’t even legally recognized as a sentient species yet), you could do anything to an android and the worst you’d get was a slap on the wrist for ‘property damage’. Bad enough that someone - and Hank would bet his left arm they all had a good idea who Fowler and Connor were talking about. The biggest druglord on the regional map, Nonstick Nick himself - would go to the android waste dumps and ‘harvest’ blue blood… Suddenly all androids were fair game, just to fuel one man’s greed for money and power. But the next thing out of Connor’s perfectly painted mouth was the one that hit Hank the hardest.

_“And he’s getting suspicious. I think he’s onto me.”_ He held up his hands in an age old forestalling gesture, not wanting Fowler to jump to any conclusions. _“I’m not saying I want out. But… I think expedience is of the essence.”_

In so many words, thought Hank: _please get me out of there._

***

_Friday the 17th of December, 2038, at precisely 11PM, 23:00, Connor stood in front of the bathroom mirror of his studio apartment, which was cheap as chips and not two blocks from Barnes’s favorite nightclub. He didn’t have unlimited funds, but he had enough for a place to stay that checked out, and he needed more than one set of clothing. In all fairness, he had more than enough cash on him to build a persona from the ground up. He was new in town, no friends, he got a part time job at the round-the-clock diner down the street - all in a week’s work. He took all the shifts he got, which meant he’d had ample time to practice his social skill set on the customers. Plenty of time to go from cautious new employee to showing more of his ‘true character’. He was a friendly professional, bantering with the customers, making friends among the staff, getting on good terms with the boss lady._

_Tonight, however, was the night he’d try out a new facet to his avatar. Not the professional face all humans wear at work, but the one they put on after hours, when all bets are off and the night is theirs to conquer. He had an outfit, which looked more like a costume if he was honest. It was a bodysuit, to begin with - not something he ever thought he’d wear - so expertly crafted that it looked like a second skin. It was a crisp, pure white, with cut-outs going from his neck down to just below his sternum, and mirrored at the back but going even farther, to the small of his back. His arms were completely bare, which he liked. He had good shoulders, slim but strong arms. The more dryly assessing side of his mind palace noted he looked like a fortune cookie. Or, rather, like he was trying too hard. Especially with the five inch stilettos._

_He couldn’t argue - his dry assessment was right. He’d never get into the club with just the outfit. He’d have to do something drastic. Something in keeping with his observations as to what Barnes didn’t know he wanted. He’d had plenty of wholesome, generically attractive people on his arm over the years. In fact, analyzing his microexpressions from the tabloids and newsfeeds of the past few months, he’d looked undeniably bored. He wanted something new, something fresh and vibrant. A hard side part and a wayward cowlick coupled with a smattering of beauty marks was not it, Connor surmised, and brought up his_ **[Settings - physical appearance - hair - color]**

_...no. He did_ not _suit white hair. Or orange (what was that movie Hank loved, The Fifth Element?). Perhaps it came down to some carefully calculated bias on behalf of CyberLife’s technicians and programmers, but Connor defaulted to his usual dark brown. Then, for_ **[style]** _... He tried out every preprogrammed variation on the theme of hair and style, ranging from the practical to the ridiculous, (Pigtails?_ Really? _) settling on something more practical. A buzzcut so microscopic it verged on the bald look, but with his dark hair setting one could just make out the outline of his normally full head of hair. This wasn’t about hair, per se, it was a statement waiting to happen._

_The only problem was, Connor was having conflicting ideas about his mission objective. He was designed to blend in, but here he would have to stand out. Be noticed in a club full of humans. The heels alone would take care of that. Even in a club setting he’d concluded that already tall humans rarely wanted to emphasize that. He would be 6’6” in those heels. Taller even than Hank by a good few inches._

_Hank…_

_He was probably having a horrible time at the Holiday party. ‘Christmas carnage’, he called it. He’d bought a new shirt the week before the party, Connor knew from his bank statements. He shouldn’t have looked, but he wanted to know if he should get something for Hank, as a Christmas present. Though, with whose money, he didn’t know. There he was, abusing Hank’s personal integrity based on a reality he didn’t even have. Not only was it a silly dream, but a creepy one. From a human perspective._

_...there was only one human whose perspective he truly cared about. Only one whom he trusted implicitly. If Hank was the one going undercover, trying to slip unnoticed into the innermost core of a drug empire - what would he do?_

_Connor grinned at his own mirror image, and using reference images of gender nonconformist humans throughout history (fictional and non), he decked himself out like a peacock. Golden highlights and eyeshadows, and eyelashes tinted a royal blue, like his lips, velveteen and sumptuous; nails longer than his default, but not by much, they were almond shaped and dusted with gold. There he was: ready to conquer the night, dressed to the nines, and perfectly non-linear. Non-binary, mixing male and female attributes to his own liking._

_If it were Hank, he would walk into the club like he owned the place, set the night on fire - and that’s exactly what Connor did._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present time, Hank realizes these are dire times, indeed.
> 
> Past time, Connor brings out the big guns to catch the eye of the most dangerous human in all of Michigan. And it works.

* * *

They’d heard enough. If anyone asked Hank, who in all fairness outranked them all by both actual rank and chronological experience living on this planet - they’d heard more than enough for something that was so Need to Know nobody but Fowler had a clue. But, as things would have it, just when Hank thought enough was enough and they'd better get back to work before the game was officially up, Connor turned his head to look straight at them through the glass wall. Miller first, then Chen, Collins, and Hank. Last but not least, those otherworldly, painted eyes lingered on him, before turning back to Fowler. He knew they were there…

...and he said nothing. Not to Fowler, at any rate. _“We’ve got to think of something. Barnes’s right hand man, Llewellyn, has been giving me the stink eye since day one. He’s tried putting my face through reference searches, checked my social media, been down to the diner posing as a customer. He’s not gonna stop until he’s ferreted something out, and then I’m done for. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s calling up my old schoolmates, asking about me.”_

It was so surreal - not just that Connor was going directly against procedure by letting the Fantastic Four listen in on a classified conversation, but to hear him using jargon. He was as professional as ever, but there were these little things that slipped into his vocal pattern, these little linguistic contractions he never used to make, all these bits of vernacular, like a true youth of the age, having grown up in a global community. He still had his Detroit accent, but it was ever so subtly altered, somehow. Better suited to this very-nearly-buzzed-to-the-synthetic-fucking-skin apparition in dangling jewelry and makeup, worlds apart from Connor-as-he-was after the revolution. Two sides of the same coin, maybe, or perhaps Connor was experiencing the same dissonance human undercover cops did. Once you inhabited someone else’s life for long enough, got under their skin, it took a while to shrug it off. Sometimes the lines drawn between yourself and the cover got so blurry they ceased to exist.

And while Fowler wasn't technically happy about the situation, the damage was done. _“He won’t find anything. Our guys ping anything on Connor Stern, pick up any chatter at all, they’ll intercept it. You can count on it.”_

Connor nodded, but Hank knew from the tiny little frown line between his eyebrows that he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced. He knew something else, too. Connor wasn’t just giving his _de facto_ superior officer an update on the situation - he was asking _them_ for backup.

***

 _The first few nights amounted to little in ways of actual contact with his target, but quickly turned into a study in human behavior. He walked in there with all the_ gravitas _of the world, compared to the roaring cheer of the crowd. Taking a leaf out of Hank’s book, he did his best to exude an air of absolute confidence. Nothing could touch Hank - not jabs about his age, or his physique, or his alcohol abuse - nothing fazed him. Not because he was in any way coldhearted or numb (although perhaps he was, in those early days), but because he had more important things to worry about than someone’s_ opinion _of him. Hank knew his own mettle, his own worth, and he was confident enough in himself not to be affected by the more trivial aspects of life._

_The gatekeeper in place outside let him through the velvet rope like he was a celebrity, and right then and there he knew he could do this. Connor walked into the nightclub like he belonged there, like he’d been there a thousand times before, and no one questioned his presence. No one told him he wasn’t allowed past this or that point, because he fit the place like hand in glove._

_Once inside, however, bathing in a galaxy of dazzling lights and enormous holo screens playing music videos and advertising the night’s revelries, like retro karaoke night (Free drinks for the best performance!) - he felt just a little bit out of his depth. Everyone was dancing, drinking, some going so far as to practically engage in coitus with their clothes on. The music was unlike anything Connor had ever subjected himself to - a fusion of Asian pop and American techno beats, and cutesy lyrics set to a ruthless bassline. Christmas remixes and dubstep… More than ever he wished he could sit on his end of Hank’s couch, one of his classic heavy metal vinyls playing in the background while Hank made himself dinner in the kitchen._

_It wasn’t all bad, however. Five hundred references of live dancing later, he knew exactly how to move on the dance floor to get the right kind of attention. Barnes was in the VIP section up on the mezzanine above the dance floor, and Connor made it his mission to get noticed, and the only way to do that was to stand out of the crowd of adoring fans (and there were hordes of them, all wanting to be Barnes’s new toy). His first strategy?_

_Ignore Barnes and his posse -_ completely _._

_*_

_The recurring theme of party time karaoke wasn’t so much retro fun times, like the establishment wanted to let on, but a never ending stream of failed attempts at flirting with the man up in the glass box. Night after night, ballad after ballad wailed out by famesick fools, accompanied by too many gyrating hips to shake a stick at, and girls and boys of every age attempting to fit the mold of the modern Homo Sapien - if Barnes liked watching perfect strangers embarrass themselves in a nightclub full of competition, fine. It was his club, even if his name wasn’t on the legal documents. This was one of his many establishments that aided and abetted his less palatable franchise - he was the club’s biggest ‘patron’, of course he got to call the shots._

_That was all well and good, but if Connor had to sit through another go at a_ kawaii _take on Mariah Carey's Christmas super hit, he was going to have to strangle someone. It was time to make his move. The next jock-turned-club kid in line got a palm to the forehead, and Connor pushed them out of the way. One piercing look told them not to make a fuss, which was enough to send a murmur throughout the club. Lookit the new cat in town, who does she think they are?_

 _Connor swiped through the catalogue of chewing gum cutesy pop, more for show than anything. It was surprisingly easy to hack into the system and find what he wanted. Or rather, download what he had in mind but was sadly lacking the club’s repertoire. He picked one of Hank’s favorites, but not only because Hank loved the album - but Barnes liked his Edgar Allan Poe, and the lyrics to this one song quite obviously referenced_ The Premature Burial.

 _The moment the speakers started blasting the first few bars of Rob Zombie’s Superbeast, a jolt of energy went through the club like a bolt out of a clear blue sky._ _It was exactly the high Connor needed. He didn’t even need to look across the sea of awestruck faces to know he’d struck gold. All eyes were on him as he pressed the micro-mic to his cheek and started swaying to the hard, relentless, ruthless riffs of the guitars. No more twee little romances here, no, this android was about to drag everyone’s sorry asses across the proverbial concrete through the sheer power of his voice. One of the many wonders of his make and model - he could modulate his voice to suit any circumstance. Why not like this?_

**_“Shriek the lips across a ragged tongue,_ **

**_Convulsing together sing violently,_ **

**_Move the jaw, cry aloud,_ **

**_Bound up the dead triumphantly!”_ **

_And up there, high above, up in his glass box, Nico Barnes’s eyes glowed with fresh desire._

**_...“Hey, yeah! I’m the one that you wanted!_ **

**_“Hey, yeah! I’m the Superbeast!”_ **

****To be continued~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're unfamiliar with Rob Zombie, go educate yourself ;) and listen to Hellbilly Deluxe. Whether you're a fan of heavy metal or not, it's a great album, very late 90's metal. I'm a complete metalhead, and I figured that since Hank listens to Knights of the Black Death, he ought to appreciate a bit of classic industrial metal. And, since Connor is taking a leaf out of Hank's book, why wouldn't he go with something badass?
> 
> And I do love a bit of foreshadowing. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN :D
> 
> Word of caution, though! DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO TO SUPERBEAST IF YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF SENSITIVITY TO FLASHING LIGHTS. That video is INSANE.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present, Hank gets a mysterious text from an unknown sender that leads to a secret meeting in the dark.
> 
> In the past, Connor finally hooks his big fish... And establishes his boundaries, of sorts.

* * *

By the time Connor and Fowler came back from Interrogation #1, Hank and the others were back at their respective posts as if nothing had happened, and nothing was amiss. They’d never gone near the Observation Room, and to suggest anything of the sort would be ludicrous to the extreme.

Hank sipped his now cold coffee, half watching over the rim of his cup as Connor patted the Captain’s impressive chest and popped his hip like a purring kitten. He’d never seen anything like that from an android before. Not even the Tracis at the Eden Club had been so calculatedly flirtatious. Dead-eyed and gyrating, yes, but nothing like this. He didn’t know what to feel about Connor giving Fowler his bestest, prettiest, sharpest grin - or the fact he felt ever so vaguely uncomfortable about how-- _sexualized_ Connor was, all of a sudden. Was it a case of downloaded subroutines, or whatever the term was, or...life imitating art rather than the other way around? Connor seemed...terribly alive. Ferociously autonomous in a way that made Hank’s spine tingle with the bastard cousin of apprehension.

He watched, hypnotized, as Connor plucked a pair of sunglasses (designer, extra large and sleek, black and chrome) from inside his suit jacket and slipped them on. The grin on his face was like the Cheshire Cat’s, and he strutted out of the station with the air of someone whose inflated ego had been indulged, good and proper.

Fowler came back cursing under his breath and sweat beading all over his bald head. Apparently Hank wasn’t the only one getting his wires crossed left and right under the onslaught of those eyes.

“Everything alright there, Chief?” Hank asked, minding his own goddamn business. Not.

“Shut up, Hank. Jesus _Christ_ ,” grumbled Fowler, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Not one second later, Hank’s cell phone buzzed from an incoming text message. Sender ID unknown… This time Hank’s heart didn’t simply skip a beat. It did acrobatics all up and down his chest cavity.

| _Used to bring Cole there, before. Alone. Dark._ |

Cryptic message though it was, it couldn’t have read any clearer to him. The playground overlooking the waters, and the Ambassador Bridge… Connor wanted to meet him there, after dark, and he’d have to come alone.

***

_At the diner, he was the sweetheart of the boss lady and the best bud with the other employees, swift and efficient with the customers - but he was the king and queen of the nightclub. From the moment he asserted himself among the others, he was in equal parts loathed and worshipped and feared. He was an outsider, a statistical outlier catching the attention of the one and only Nonstick Nick, and the fact that he didn’t seem to care only elevated his status as something undefined, unknown, something Other Than Them._

_Only problem was, Nico took his own sweet time making a move. Instead he sent over waitstaff with free drinks, compliments of Mr Barnes. Yes, well, jolly good, hey-ho, and down the chute they went. Connor downed them, or asked to change them to something stronger. Something like whiskey, neat, “And make it a large one, doll.”_

_The smell reminded him of Hank, and how_ little _he smelled of hard liquor these days. It served another purpose as well: his was a careful balancing act of never succumbing to the predictable. Barnes send him over a Cosmopolitan, all pink and frou-frou, Connor ordered a whiskey sour instead. Barnes tried a piña colada, Connor ordered a Manhattan. It’s not as though he was affected by the alcohol, which was another side effect he’d take advantage of. If he needed to drink the guy under the table, he would, if only to score points on some scoreboard tallying up whose machismo outweighed the others._

_Yes, he painted his lips for these nights out. Yes, he wore stiletto heels. But was he going for girly? No. He was like a peacock spreading its tail feathers - vibrant, eye catching. And the night before New Year’s Eve, Nico was hook-line-and-sinker’d. At long last._

_Connor’s one way ticket came in the shape of Nico’s massive bodyguard and right-hand man, Llewellyn Smythe. Built like a brick shithouse and with a face to match, he looked like a stunt double from one of those hard-ass British movies from thirty years ago. Lock, Stock, and a Shitload of Swearing. That type._

_“Nico wants ya,” said Llewellyn, his London-by way of-New York accent adding to his questionable charms._

_“Does he, really?” Connor drawled back, barely turning his head to look. “Well, then, Nico wants me, he can come tell it to my face. What is this, kindergarten?”_

_“Oi, you little bitch,” growled Smythe, grabbing him by the upper arm. It was the worst possible thing he could’ve done, as the next second he stumbled backwards with a broken nose._

_“Hands off the merchandise,_ sweetheart _,” Connor snarled. “No one touches me._ No one. _”_

_The music cut off, replaced with the clean, crisp white noise of the soundsystem. Nico was about to speak up, and he wasn’t bothered if everyone could hear it over the PA system._

“Impressive. Would you care to join me upstairs for drinks, Mr Stern? Or, how should I address you?”

_Connor looked up towards the glass box, and gave Mr Barnes his most winsome smile. Mission: Get in - accomplished._

***

It was well after dark when Hank could finally call it a day, _i.e._ slip away from an ongoing shift from the depths of Hell to race towards a playground he hadn’t set foot in since November. After dark, Connor’s text said, and to come alone - check, and double check. He wasn’t about to risk anything by ignoring instructions. Despite Hank’s experience of different departments of law enforcement, Connor was the expert here. He had all the intel, knew all the players, and Hank was the one going in blind.

Blind faith… What a concept - but that was it. There were only a handful of people Hank counted among those he’d drop everything for, and Connor was very definitely one of them. Even if it meant he had to go all clandestine, secret rendezvous, covert ops and shit, he’d do it for Connor.

His eyes spied for any sign of him as he pulled up outside the park and walkway and got out of the car. And there he was, long legs stretched out and bending as he swayed on one of the swings, dark jeans and sneakers and a dark gray overcoat, a black knitted cap and gloved hands on the chains. All he saw was his profile, turning towards him at the sound of the car. Connor looked exactly like himself and like nothing at all Hank had ever imagined. No otherworldly makeup, no sparkly paint, no giving gender-conformity the finger, just...him. He was _beautiful_ , and Hank had no idea how to keep that observation to himself when his heart was hammering in his chest and he could feel his face heat up even before the car door closed beside him. Connor was a walking crime lab, after all.

Hank swallowed, pressing suddenly dry lips together, and walked on over. There was something incredibly comforting about seeing his partner in the flesh, looking more like himself, or his old self, but not quite. Connor stood up from the swing with a small smile, dimpled chin ducking into the enormous knitted scarf looped around his neck. Something clenched in Hank’s chest then, and before he could quite rein himself in he’d closed the distance and gathered him up in a bear hug.

He kissed Connor’s cheek, just like he did that morning outside the ChickenFeed, and all was right with the world. He smelled like waffles and cologne, the fancy stuff Hank never bothered with, and suddenly he couldn’t imagine life without that smell. Connor squeezed him around the shoulders, leaning into the hug like a dream. Everything was right with the world. No matter what he needed, they could sort this out.

Hank cleared his throat again, pulling back with a new boost of determination. His mind was set. There was no turning back now. “Alright, talk to me. What do you need?”

His partner’s lingering smile was tinged with relief, but the look in his eyes gave a different meaning to the slant of his lips. He sighed, pushing artificially heated air through his nose. “I’m going to have to die. And it has to happen soon.”

...okay, so that wasn’t what Hank had expected of their clandestine reunion. “Jesus _fuck--_ Connor…”

His curses aside, Connor simply smiled and pressed his hands with enough confidence for the pair of them.

“It’s good to see you too, Lieutenant. Oh, and sorry for calling you a pissant.”

“Holy _shit_ \--”

“...although, they’re really quite fascinating creatures. Did you know the _Formica rufa_ can have well over one hundred egg-producing females in one colony?”

Something bloomed in Hank’s chest, warm and gooey like a soft chocolate center coated in batter and thrown in the deep fryer. Possibly his heart. It was good to see Connor hadn’t lost his love for Interesting Trivia(™).

“Yeah? That’s quite something. Now get in the car. I need a double coffee, triple sugar whatchaccino something to hear this. I assume you got a plan?”

Connor nodded, the very dictionary definition of enthusiasm. It was going to be a long night, but Hank hoped it would never have to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Connor isn't *actually* going to die. Not even as much as he does in the game, if you play it right. ...or wrong. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present time, Hank talks to Fowler regarding Connor’s predicament, and Fowler brings up the elephant in the room.
> 
> In the past, Connor gets closer to Barnes, and realizes it’s going to be tougher to get out than it was to get in.

* * *

The morning after their meeting, Hank stood in Fowler’s office positively fuming.

“I KNOW he’s ‘perfectly capable’ of taking care of himself! Goddammit, Jeff, I’ve watched him parkour the shit out of the Urban Gardens!”

Fowler sighed, setting down twin cups of black coffee on his desk, forcefully enough that the hot brew sloshed over the glazed ceramic. “Shit…” he hissed under his breath and grabbed a paper towel from his designated coffee corner with the sleek espresso maker.

“What do you want me to do, Hank? It’s Need to Know. You don’t _fucking_ need to know!”

“I don’t give a _shit_ ! He’s my _partner!_ I saw him walk in here like he rules the fuckin’ world, but I’m telling you he’s scared shitless. He wants out, but he can’t tell you, ‘cause you’re his only legitimate link to the DPD. He _trusts me_.”

Fowler leveled him with a penetrating stare, and sipped his coffee. They each sat down on either side of the captain’s desk. Fowler took his time weighing his words, until Hank lost his patience, and he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“What? You gonna lecture me on boundaries again? Protocol?”

“Nope,” said Fowler in return. “I’m gonna ask you what you know.”

Hank blinked at his oldest friend that he still had regular contact with, wondering if the jig was up. It very probably was, if Fowler’s knowing look was anything to go by. “I’m not following.”

Fowler sipped his coffee again, then set the cup on the desk directly in front of him, lacing his fingers like a perimeter set up around a crime scene. “You’re right. He trusts you like nobody else. Which means he’s decided you _do_ need to know, or you wouldn’t be in here, huffing and puffing like some old dragon.”

Jig: definitely up. Hank swallowed, covering up his bobbing larynx with a big gulp of scorching coffee. He’d regret that, but right now it didn’t seem to matter. “He texted me. Yesterday, after his big performance. Wanted to meet me.”

Fowler stayed quiet, which was both a blessing and a curse. Hank didn’t want his running commentary, but the silence prompted him to go on and tell all. It was the oldest trick in the copper’s manual, the ol’ silent treatment. He told him about Connor’s plan, everything he knew, which in all honesty wasn’t much other than the fact Connor was concerned enough about his predicament that he was planning his own death. Grim, macabre idea though it was, Fowler’s calm response told Hank Fowler knew all about it.

“I’m glad he at least didn’t tell you about the operation at large…” Fowler sat up straighter, and nodded the once. “This is how it’s going to be. You're not here. You don't know any of this. This conversation has never taken place. Got it?”

He nodded, managing to keep his mouth shut for the time being. Fowler went on, “And let me make one thing very clear. I’m only letting you get in on this because I want to know what you’re doing at all times, so _you_ don’t go rogue and end up getting yourself killed, and Connor blames _me_ for it. You two are gonna have a shot at a future together if it gives me an ulcer, and don’t give me that look, Hank, I _know_ you got yourself a new shirt for the Christmas party and then spent the entire night sulking because he couldn’t be there. You deserve to be happy, and that’s the end of it.”

The blush creeping up Hank’s neck had to be of epic proportions or it wouldn’t burn so hot around the collar. He cleared his throat, or tried to. Sometimes it really sucked having friends who weren’t afraid to get verbal about stuff. “I didn’t sulk…”

“Uhuh,” snorted Fowler. “And Collins didn’t request the goddamn Macarena all night long.”

And that, as they say, was the end of the discussion. Hank was officially part of the team. Unofficially speaking.

***

_When it came to a man like Nico Barnes, it was all too easy to assume (if you were the uncharitable sort) that he was a bit of a whore, what with the never-ending parade of trophy partners, but Connor soon learned that the man was a bit of an enigma. Just like Connor, he knew what was expected of someone in his position, dealing in these particular trades of his. In reality, he was a quiet, unassuming man in exquisite suits and wireframe glasses. He had a long face, all the features slanting downwards, lending him the look of a beagle with too much skin succumbing to gravity - charming, if you liked the breed, but deadly if you were a hare._

_In the eyes of such a man, Connor’s alter ego was nothing less than an exotic rarity to be admired and desired in equal measure. That he showed no interest whatsoever in Nico’s wealth, status or business was refreshing rather than suspicious. When Connor told him that first night in the VIP lounge over drinks, well into the evening, that he was asexual, Barnes seemed more relieved than disappointed. Connor knew this from a careful logging of every response Nico gave him, from the moment he first stepped into the club and leading right up to that very moment._

_Perhaps all he wanted was someone alluring to talk to, someone who spoke their mind and didn’t give a shit what he thought. Someone who didn’t fawn over him, but kept their distance, in keeping with common courtesy. One thing Nico made very clear, however, was that anyone who associated with him had better look the part - and Connor’s variation on the same outfit was not going to cut it. The very next day, Nico sent him into the fancier boutique shops of the Detroit metropolitan area with very clear directions. Find something nice to wear for tonight._

_New Year’s Eve. The last night of the year, rife with the promise of something vibrant and new in the coming year. And there he was, shopping outfits for Nico’s pleasure, when all he_ really _wanted was to curl up on Hank’s couch and pick out the olfactory components of his dinner and show him their atomic structures. But then he had an idea: what if it wasn’t Nico who sent him on a shopping spree, but Hank? What if he just wanted Connor to have something casual, something that wasn’t so much like a Detective’s uniform (or the CyberLife issue jacket), and instead Connor returned with a bag full of secrets._

_Lace or mesh or silky things, shiny, pretty geometric patterns, pops of color… Underthings and overthings and inbetweenthings… Suddenly the prospect of finding something nice to wear for New Year’s didn’t seem like such a chore. In fact, he found it quite exhilarating. What would Hank like to see him wear? He’d want him to be comfortable, so it stood to reason that if Hank was the one making suggestions he’d wear nothing but sweatpants and t-shirts and all the snuggly blankets in the world. But Hank wasn’t there, except for his continuous presence at the center of Connor’s mind._

_Would Hank blush if he showed up for New Year’s in a long sleeved, peach colored lace leotard so pale it might as well be his own skin? Or would he prefer something less overtly pretty? The answer seemed ridiculously simple, when you put it like that. Hank was a metalhead with a fondness for jazz. He had a sweet tooth, but he took his coffee black as tar. Hank would like a bit of both worlds. More importantly, Connor was finding he quite enjoyed a bit of juxtaposition in his life._

_*_

_Whatever Barnes had expected of his flavor of the week, he got a bit more than he bargained for. If he had thought Connor would find himself something nice and respectable, something classy and refined, he was in for a bit of an awakening. Connor showed up to the fanciest restaurant in the city wearing calf-high metal toe work boots as black as the night outside, duochrome black/turqoise latex pants with a waist so low as skating the very edge of decency, a pale peach lace top that left very little to the imagination and disappeared like second skin beneath the waistline, and a dark grey overcoat as token protection from the elements. It was the only reason he was let into the very exclusive restaurant, that prim, proper overcoat, and the only thing that allowed him to stay once it came off was his company._

_“Too much?” He asked Barnes from across the candlelit, white tablecloth extravaganza of luxury-in-moderation._

_Barnes grinned at him from across the table, and raised his glass of California prosecco. “Just enough. I gotta tell you one thing, Stern, you got balls the size of Texas to show up to the finest, most conformingly ‘civilized’ restaurant in town looking like that.”_

_“Thank you,” said Connor, and chinked his flute of bubbly to Barnes’s. “Ain’t my fault if I’m too funky for the establishment.”_

_“Something tells me that’s a way of life, not just an observation of your current context.”_

_Connor smiled, fluttered his long lashes, and let his response be a quiet sip of his drink._

_*_

_January passed at a brisk pace, Connor zig-zagging between his shifts at the diner and his nights at the club, cementing his presence in both worlds. Sometimes his shift got in the way of clubbing, which wasn’t a problem - he didn’t want to seem too predictable, and he certainly didn’t want to seem like he was turning down shifts to go out every night of the week. He hoped it was the correct course of action, and a week or two into the month, he got his answer._

_Barnes showed up at the diner at 2 AM, posse in tow, very civil and polite, asking for waffles and coffee. Connor knew he’d done it then. Barnes enjoyed his company enough to change his routine._

_“Nicholas,” he said, the way parental units do across the world, tut-tutting their errant offspring. “Don’t expect me to stand around chatting with you, I’m a hard working girl.”_

_Barnes’s eyes glinted with amusement, charmed by Connor’s (carefully calculated) lack of bullshit. “Funny. You look like a boy in those clothes.”_

_He could feel his lips tug sideways, and tilted his head, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn’t, he shifted his weight to his other hip. “...your point being…?”_

_It did the trick. Barnes chuckled, Connor poured him and his bodyguards coffee (Smythe glaring daggers at him all the while). “Touché. My apologies. My bad.”_

_“Damn right, Mister. Waffles coming right up, and don’t you holler at me if you want stuff.”_

_*_

_Little by little, he earned Barnes’s trust, and little by little he edged closer to the epicenter of his business. He gained access to his home, to his office, to the other nightclubs the man had to his name. Barnes liked his company, and more and more Connor’s life shifted from hard-working employee at the diner, to platonic sugar baby. Barnes gave him money to use at his own discretion, gave him clothes, gave him jewelry, in ways he had never done previously._

_It was both incredibly gratifying to know his cover identity was working, but in other ways it was ever so slightly alarming. He was practically getting in bed with the most dangerous man in the entire state, however metaphorically speaking. He was beginning to realize that as easy as he got in, it was going to take a Hell of a lot more to get out once he got what he came for. Simply being a nomadic spirit always on the move to some indefinable horizon wasn’t going to cut it. He couldn't just disappear into the setting sun like a hazy mirage. Barnes liked his toys, and he only ever parted with them on his own terms._

_Connor would have to come up with a different exit strategy, and it had to be a good one or he’d never get out._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present time, not one week after Connor's plea for help, Nonstick Nick is the target of an assassination attempt that goes horribly wrong.
> 
> In the past, Connor overhears a conversation between Barnes and his associates, spurring him into action.

* * *

Tuesday, March 8 2039, not even a full week after Connor’s explosive re-entry into Hank’s life, things were about to get complicated. That is, more complicated than they already were, and Hank couldn’t for the life of him prepare for what was to come. Everything was planned down to the tiniest detail, and Hank knew for a fact Connor had this in the bag. He knew what he was doing, he had everything under control, but Hank couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible, horrible, world-ending was going to happen. Not even the most advanced android prototype in the world could account for dumb luck, or chance. Even if he could predict the future, surely he couldn’t control every aspect of it. Hank had seen him do some pretty crazy shit, like dancing and jumping around cars on the automated highway, but this was different.

This time, Connor was putting himself in the crosshairs of a bolt-action M24 sniper rifle.

***

Grand Circus Park was an oasis of sunshine and tranquility, the old oaks bursting with a will to live despite the cold, early spring weather. It was midday, early enough to beat the lunchtime rush, but late enough for a bit of brunch. Barnes and Connor sat on either side of a picnic basket set on one of the many benches scattered across the park’s pathways. They were canopied by great big branches, and the park itself was framed by tall buildings, perfect for the more sinister part of his plan. It was from the rooftop of one such building that the fist of an angry god would strike down the wrong person - or so Barnes would be led to believe. His bodyguards were at a respectful distance, keeping an eye out for anyone who might try something. Barnes was always careful when out in the open, being something of a celebrity with more than a fair share of enemies. Just because no one had lived to tell the tale of going up against him didn’t mean someone wasn’t going to try something. His was a lucrative business, his empire a lure for any rival.

“You want to see what I got for the grand opening?” Connor asked from across the picnic basket, sipping his smoothie with all the mischief of the world in his eyes. Some 800 meters away, Hank sat in his car, Collins in the passenger seat, listening in on the conversation courtesy of a long-distance mic, watching through the lens of a tiny little set of binoculars. “You in position, up there?”

_ ‘You know I am, Hank. We’ve got this.’ _

Hank didn’t know how to feel about having Markus on their team. On the one hand, the first RK android had a similar skillset to Connor’s, and knew his way around all manner of weaponry and machinery. On the other hand, he was about to shoot the only one in Hank’s life who made him look forward to getting out of bed every morning. One hand, yay more than capable sniper, whoo! Other hand, Connor was about to drop dead, and that was the last thing Hank wanted to ever see.

“I don’t like this, Hank,” Ben said, out of the blue. “Not one bit of it.”

“Me either, but it has to be today. Had to be the first chance we got, Connor said.”

Ben nodded, but the agreement came with a heavy sigh. “Or there wouldn’t be another one.”

And yet, here they were. Here he was, watching through his binoculars, unable to tear his eyes off of Connor’s smiling, happy face...couldn’t look away as Connor teased the other guy, and got to his feet, opening his jacket to show off a brand new corset on top of his businesslike shirt. “See? Not a hint of leather anywhere, you must be so proud of me.”

“It’s nice,” Barnes said, watching with a mild look of intrigue as Connor twirled in front of him. “Bit sad to see the hard edge wearing off, though. You know you don’t have to change a thing for me, Stern. Where’s that wild child streak of yours, hm?”

“You don’t know what I’m wearing underneath it, do you.”

Hank gritted his teeth. Connor was getting into position, cocky and confident like only this alter ego of his could be. He was readying himself for the key phrase. Already Hank’s heart lurched in his chest.

“I am a rarefied beast,” said Connor, and that was the first cue. Hank felt sick to his stomach. “There’s no one like me in the entire  _ world _ . I’m one of a kind, I am  _ unique _ , darli--”

Hank watched from the safety of his car, white noise filling his head. Birds fled the scene en masse at the first shot. What few people were around scattered like wildlife in the presence of a predator. Connor stopped - stopped talking, stopped moving, just...slowly folded to the ground like a house of cards. No theatrics, nothing dramatic about it. Sudden death. Another shot rang out, but Hank couldn’t hear it, just see it in the way Nico’s bodyguards rushed to his side and muscled him out of the park, leaving Connor’s lifeless body behind. That’s the thing about death - more often than not it doesn’t make a big deal of itself. It just...happens.

The entire world was a blur, compounded by the strangling ache of his throat. Not two minutes later Markus’s voice came over their commlink, saying he was clear.

“Good,” said Hank, but he couldn’t recognize his own voice. “Call it in.” It was go time. Back to business. In absolutely no time, dispatch would issue an alert over the radio. Miller and Chen were close enough to the area, carefully positioned to be first responders. That Hank and Collins just happened to be in the area was neither here nor there. Hank was one of the higher ranking homicide investigators, to call him would be the natural course of action regardless of where he happened to be. It always was.

***

_ Barnes’s right hand man, Llewellyn Smythe, might be a ruffian, but he was a fast learner. He touched Connor all but once, and learned the hard way that  _ that shit _ wasn’t gonna fly. Past their first encounter and his bloodied nose, he kept his distance, watching Connor like a hawk. It made Connor’s primary goal a difficult one, but what Smythe didn’t know couldn’t hurt Connor - such as Connor hacking into Barnes’s security systems without anyone being the wiser, or getting into his private computer with a single glance. Non-dextrous hacking did make his life so much easier - but it yielded very little in return. Barnes had nothing on his computer, at home or otherwise, to suggest he was the spider at the top of the food chain of his business empire. Nothing at all that could be digitally traced. It went in keeping with his tendency to use cash only for all his transactions. He simply didn’t want to leave any digital footprints. No social media, nothing. From that point of view he might as well not exist, he was so invisible. Untouchable. _

_ But Connor knew Barnes was the kind of man who wanted to keep tabs on everything, and one day not far off from Valentine’s, he walked into the nightclub’s VIP lounge just in time to see Barnes slip a small, black notebook into his suit jacket. _

_ If only he had X-ray vision, he could’ve had all the evidence he needed right then and there - but in reality, it would be weeks before he finally got it. He had to find it, first, and he had to get it out of there and into the hands of the DPD. Nothing like a bit of hard evidence to bring a man down. _

_ It’s funny how the universe worked, because Smythe had the same, exact idea about him, and began checking his background from every angle possible. One night towards the end of February, after a long shift at the diner, Smythe was waiting across the street from Connor’s apartment. He said nothing, just stood there for hours, staring up at Connor’s window. As far as points being made, it was one of the more chillingly poignant ones. Smythe was watching him, and made no effort to hide it. _

***

It was midday, right around lunchtime when Hank walked onto the crime scene with Detective Collins in tow. “Alright. Miller, what do we have here?”

Miller and Chen had secured the crime scene, and Chen was still talking to witnesses in the background. “Our victim’s name is Connor Stern, ID says they’re 32 years old, gender ‘other’. Witnesses say they were having a picnic with an older partner, described as male, when Stern was shot. Several shots were fired, witnesses are unsure of how many.”

Hank nodded, letting Miller take the lead. This was the song and dance they would all have to live through, and if they had to put on a show for the spectators and media, then it was going to be a good one. It had to be.

“Shell casings?”

“None so far,” Miller said, but pointed Hank towards the bench. “Two of the bullets were lodged into the bench itself, where the victim and his partner were having lunch.”

“Not much of a crime scene,” Collins noted, suitably grim. Having little to nothing to go on was a homicide investigator’s nightmare. They turned, then, to the victim.

“Officer Chen checked for vital signs, but they were already dead.”

Hank crouched beside the victim (Connor Stern, age 32, gendered as ‘other’), and looked him over like he’d done several hundred victims on several hundred crime scenes in the past. “I don’t see an exit wound. How many bullets in the bench?”

“Two,” said Miller.

“Huh.” Hank pulled on a pair of latex gloves and carefully lifted the lapel of the suit jacket to have a closer look. As long as he didn’t look at Connor’s face, then he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the fact this was hitting far too close to home. There was no exit wound, which was exactly what they’d counted on. The added reinforcement of a corset padded with kevlar at the front meant any projectile would go in, and not go anywhere. Couldn’t have Barnes covered in blood bank donations and CyberLife shrapnel, now, could they. No. Stern was shot in the back, and now the entry wound had done its job, emptying his torso of its additions. Human blood. Five gallons, to be precise - and the crime scene was consistent with a massive hemorrhage. The ground sloped ever so slightly, leaving gravity to do the rest. It was gruesome, but necessary.

Connor’s eyes stared up into the sky, as if staring into eternity itself. Hank restrained himself from closing his eyes. It was all part of the  _ mis-en-scène _ . Everything had to look the part, and by all things holy, Connor looked every bit the unfortunate bystander at the wrong place at the wrong time. His legs were folded at an angle, his arms splayed out on either side of him. His nails were black coffin shapes, his face clean except for a bit of sheer lip balm and something to keep his eyebrows neat and tidy. All in all, he looked a bit too much like himself for Hank to feel entirely detached.

“Hang in there, precious. We’ll do right by you,” Hank murmured, and pulled the suit jacket into place. Seemed such a shame for him to lay there waiting for the coroners, cold and alone.

“CSU will be arriving shortly,” Ben informed him. “And, surprise, surprise, a certain Mr Barnes just showed up at the police station, demanding protection. Think this might be related?”

Hank swallowed against the lump in his throat, and turned his eyes away from Connor’s glazed-over, dead-eyed stare. “What about the coroner?”

“Will be here S-A-P, but you know what that’s like.”

Yes, Hank knew. The coroner’s office was always overworked, understaffed, and underpaid. They’d get there as soon as they could, and not a minute later. But at least the Doc was in on the big plan.

“Let’s finish up here, then we go see what Mr Barnes has to tell us. Miller, Chen - background on Mr Stern?”

Chen piped up from beyond the perimeter tape, holographic though it was. “Already forwarded to the database, Lieutenant.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite, Chen. Keep up the good work.”

The networks were showing up now, with their camera drones and microphones and creative minds inventing narrative in five seconds flat. For once, Hank was grateful for their presence. If this was going to stick, it had to look real, and the news would help them with that. Within the hour, everyone would know about the thirty-something victim, born and raised in Detroit, recently returned to his home city after years of aimless travel. The latest, tragic victim in the ongoing war on crime/drugs/whatever. It didn’t really matter what sort of angle they went with. Soon enough someone would come forward claiming to be Stern’s best friend ever, spilling the beans about his ties to Nico Barnes. The newsfeed would be swarming with any photographic evidence available, even if all it amounted to was half a profile and those huge sunglasses next to the celebrity criminal (sorry, ‘alleged’ criminal) in question. All in a day’s work. Now they just had to reel this sucker in, and they were good. No time like the present.

***

_ If it were anyone but Connor going undercover for weeks on end with nothing to show for it, frustration would have reared its ugly face a long time ago - but for Connor, it was all about patience. This was not something you could rush. This would have to happen in stages. Only when Barnes trusted him enough to let his guard down completely would he have the opportunity to meticulously turn over his house and find the (goddamn, fucking--) little black book he kept so close to his chest at all. goddamn. fuh-cking.  _ times _. It was as if the thing didn’t even exist for how elusive it was. Connor had caught glimpses of it all of three times in over two months, and every hint of an attempt to get at it had been squashed by Barnes’s watchdog, Smythe. _

_ Smythe was a bitch and a half, always waiting in the wings, at the very outskirts of their private conversations. Connor couldn’t even pretend to go ‘powder his nose’ without the (goddamn, bloody, FUCKING) bloodhound watching his every move and probably counting the minutes until he returned. The fact that Barnes hadn’t called him off meant he didn’t trust him as much as Connor would have preferred, which only added to his... _

_...okay, so, maybe some amount of frustration was getting to him. He felt secure enough in his continuous debriefing with Fowler, or rather, uploading his memories to the Central Station server every 24 hours. Surely that would be enough - every whispered confidence, every little thing that Barnes let slip about his business. The less interest Connor showed, the more he seemed willing to talk, which worked in their favor. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, to get a suspect talking: staying silent, letting them fill the void with anecdotes and confessions. It was a strategy that had served him well, but not well enough. He had to get to the book, see its contents, judge its value as evidence. _

_ Late at night, on Thursday, March 3, Connor was lounging in Barnes’s exclusive modern abode, filling the entire house with classic death metal. He was feeling...unhinged, uneasy, restless with pent up energy waiting to be released. He had to find the book, had to get back, had to go home, he was  _ done _ with this charade already. _

_ Barnes was locked into his conference room upstairs, discussing business with his east coast associates. Connor was hooked up to the IP communications center, listening in on the conference call. It was all business as usual - sales were skyrocketing, demand was higher than ever, and they were running out of supplies. It was gruesome stuff, not something Connor wanted to hear. To think about all the discarded androids piled high in dumps all over the country, but Detroit more so than anywhere else, drained of their Thirium deposits so these shitheads, these sorry representatives for humanity could make a killing… No pun intended. It made him feel overwhelmed, to put it mildly. To be more blunt, it made him want to track down each and every one of Barnes’s associates and crush their brittle little heads, starting with Nonstick Nick, himself. _

‘We’ll be completely out of supplies in a matter of months,’ _ said one of Barnes’s business partners, asking for a way forward. It wasn’t the first time they’d brought this same thing up - a shortage of ‘supplies’, running out of options, supply and demand curves - but what Nonstick Nick said this time around sent Connor’s pump regulator into overdrive. _

‘I don’t see the problem. We have thousands and thousands of androids right here in our city. Who’s going to care if they start disappearing? With the public outrage, we’d be cleaning up the streets. We’d be doing the government a favor.’

_ Nicholas and his associates laughed, as if he’d just made a morbid joke and their favorite brand of humor was the lethal kind. Why dig up mechanical corpses from the dumps when they could pluck unsuspecting androids off the streets? Who would care? Who would even notice if they start disappearing? Not like they’re actual  _ people _ with actual  _ lives _ or anything. _

_ Connor’s artificial lungs shook inside of him as the enormity of his own situation dawned on him. Not only were the lives of thousands of viable (alive, dreaming, hopeful, aspiring, loved) androids entirely dependent on the success of his mission, but if Barnes found out  _ he _ was in fact an android… He wouldn’t simply be shot dead and thrown in the Detroit river as a lesson to anyone who dared cross the infamous Nonstick Nick. _

_ He would be drained of every drop of blue blood in him, the substance used to manufacture more Red Ice. He’d very likely end up on display at Barnes’s favorite nightclub, his individual components stuck inside a curio cabinet for all and sundry to gawk at.  _ Ooh, look at that. The android who tried to bring Nico Barnes down. How pretty. How lifelike. How very  _ stupid _ .

_ There was only one way out, and whether he liked it or not, it was going to have to be final. He had to not only disappear, but exit stage right in broad daylight. Ultimately, it would have to involve his death. If he had to choose, he'd rather be the architect of his own demise, than the object of Barnes's morbid sense of humor. It was a scenario he hadn't given any serious thought to, but now that he had, his mind palace spilled over with worst case scenarios. He realized with some concern that he seemed to be panicking - and it didn't stop until the next day, after dark, at a playground overlooking the Ambassador Bridge. _

_ * _

_ The next morning, Connor told Barnes he was going out shopping - and indeed he did. He used Barnes’s dirty money all over town, working his way incrementally closer to the DPD’s Central Station. His heart/pump was still going at 100 beats per minute, his internal stress sensors indicating he was edging too close to red numbers. He was in the high seventies already, and he didn’t know of any coping mechanism to get them back to blue again. He had to see Fowler, had to see Hank, Hank was at the station, because his cell phone was at the station, he’d be there, he had to be there-- _

_ Every purchase, he put into the same designer bag, except his last one. It was a cup of coffee in a takeaway mug, scorching hot liquid contained by flimsy eco-friendly fibers. Then he had to pick out his target, and he found one within .43 minutes. A random stranger waving down a cab. Connor picked up the pace, and bumped quite deliberately into the guy as he was stepping into the cab. _

_ Now all he had to do was make a fuss. And within the next few minutes, he stormed into Central Station’s visitors entrance and did exactly that, going straight to the receptionist at the desk, and tucked his designer sunglasses into the hidden pocket in the lining of his suit jacket. _

_ “Yes, hi, I’d like to report a crime. You think you can point me in the direction of whoever’s in charge of this dump?” _

_ If he just made enough noise, someone would have to come get him. Enough of a racket, enough of a fuss, enough of a scene - someone would have to come and throw him in the holding cells. _

_ “What do you mean I have to wait in line? I demand to speak to whoever’s in charge! No, I will NOT wait for my turn, I  _ want  _ to  _ report  _ a  _ crime _ ,  _ you dumb bitch--!! _ ” _


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present, Hank and Connor get too close for comfort.
> 
> In the past, Connor searches for things, finds stuff, and faces his alter ego's lack of a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-graphic android gore up ahead!

* * *

March 8, 2039. The sun was out, birds were chirping happily, both announcing that springtime was en route, and fast, and you’d better get with the program. That was outside. Here, in the concrete depths of the coroner’s office, there was no sunshine. No birdsong in the whole world could find its way down here. It was quiet, the whole place lit up by artificial light fixtures. LED lights bathing the corridors and the exam area in a ghostly white. A shiny pallor to highlight every little wound, every scratch, every scrap of dirt.

Hank sat in the relative safety of the observation gallery, looking down as the coroner took snapshots of the deceased. One Connor Stern, 32, single, no next of kin to speak of… Shot in the back by a large caliber projectile, dead in a matter of seconds. The coroner’s report would say the cause of death was massive blood loss from a penetrating wound to the liver. Connor’s eyes were closed now, courtesy of the old man in charge down there. Doc was a bit of a stereotype, but a good-natured soul. He talked to his patients, as he referred to them, and didn’t give a damn if anyone thought he was weird. According to the doc, you had to be of a certain persuasion to work with the dead. For him, it was all about finding the answers that would afford those left behind with closure.

This, however, was one for the books. Doc was a consummate professional, but even from this safe distance Hank could see the way his eyes shone. No one had ever done something like this before - fake autopsy procedures on an android to protect his real identity and the integrity of his undercover persona. Connor was still in standby. Hank couldn’t decide if that was supposed to make him feel any better. Knowing Connor, he would have relished the experience like he did everything else. He would’ve liked Doc, who had his own catalog of Interesting Trivia(™).

Items of clothing came off, photos were taken, until Connor’s body was completely exposed. More photos were taken, as per procedure. Hank felt numb. Even his face felt numb, because the only frame of reference he had for something like this was walking into the OR to see his dead boy. Bright lights, silent machines, and his boy… Broken ribs, punctured lung.

Bright lights, silence, and Connor’s sleeping face, and the injuries sure looked real with all that blood - it all hit too close to home, despite how different it was this time. It didn’t compare, to lose your child or lose someone who’d entered your life like a meteorite and changed everything. But death was...death, and the memory of it was traumatic enough that he really,  _ really _ wanted to find the nearest bar and drown himself in a barrel of whiskey.

“All done, Lieutenant,” said the coroner, looking up with a grin on his lips. “He’s ready for you, come on down.”

Hank nodded, grabbed the bag of clothes from the seat beside him, and headed downstairs.

*

The brown paper bag crackled under his grip, the noise too loud for the quiet of the room. The cameras were off, but the overhead lights were still on. It was like walking into that operation room all over again. Connor was covered up to his shoulders, and lay perfectly still on the metal slab. Hank stepped closer, right up to it, coming to stand beside the most important person in the world.

“Connor?” he whispered, his voice feeling weak despite knowing it was just a matter of time now, just seconds before Connor would open his eyes and be okay. “Connor, honey, time to wake up now.”

But there was no response. Hank set down the bag on the floor, hesitantly pressing his hand to Connor’s bare shoulder. He felt cold to the touch. Suddenly it felt all too possible that something had gone wrong at the park. The RK androids weren’t infallible - what if Connor had miscalculated something, what if Markus nicked something vital, but perfectly within a margin of error. Androids only lived forever if they weren’t damaged beyond repair.

And he… It had all happened so fast. He’d simply stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a  _ word _ , and simply folded to the ground. Instantly dead. Shot dead.

“Connor?  _ Connor _ .” He shook his shoulders. “Can you hear me? Open your eyes for me, sweetheart, come on. You’re safe now. It’s safe, you can stop pretending.”

Nothing happened.

Not even the slightest hint of awareness, not a twitch to the lines of his forehead, not a single flutter to his eyelashes. Was there a safeword? A key phrase? A magic word that would unlock him, like  _ Open, Sesame! _ Nothing presented itself, nothing popped into his head, he hadn’t missed something, or forgotten it. There was nothing. Connor simply didn’t respond.

Hank’s eyes fogged over with emotion. His lips tugged taut over his teeth, his chin moving against the ache at his jaw hinges. Blinking at the ceiling didn’t do him any good, just made the stinging of his eyes worse than it already was. He sniffed, and took Connor’s hand out from under the sheet, rubbing it between his own two hands. So cold. He was so cold, so unmoving. Such pretty nails, so unlike him but so fitting. Hank pressed his hand to his chest, holding it right there, right over his heart.

“You know, I’d really appreciate it if you’d getcher ass in gear and wake up already,” he joked, or tried to. He sounded quite pitiful to his own ears. “I don’t know what to do, here. Must be doing something wrong. I don’t-- know what I’ll do without you. Come on. Don’t make me beg… But... _ please _ , Connor. Get back here.”

Whether it was something he said, or the constant source of heat from his hands hugging Connor’s, but something made a very distinctive clicking sound somewhere around Connor’s sternum, and then came the almost imperceptible whirring of something else. Like a reboot, but barely even noticeable, until the most wonderfully horrible thing happened. Connor came back to life with a startled gasp and eyes as big as saucers, and all but leapt into Hank’s arms. His fingers were like claws around his back, his arms like hooks pulling him in close, his breath mingling with little noises of terror.

“Heyyy,” Hank cooed and murmured little tokens of comfort, rocking back and forth like second nature. “Shhh, I got you, gotcha, I’m right here, ‘m right here, shh, that’s my ear, don’t rip it off, there we go, alright--”

As it turned out, he was okay. Just a bit worse for wear. Just a bit shaken. A bit scarred - and if that didn’t make two of them...

*

If anyone had told him back in, say, October, that in less than six months he’d be sitting in the coroner’s office, helping his android partner clean out his torso from the inside out… Yeah. He wouldn’t have laughed, exactly.

Connor’s chestplate lay on the slab beside him, next to a container marked ‘organic waste’. Neither one had said much once Connor calmed down enough to stop shivering, but what was there to say about extracting the deflated bits of exploded blood bags and fake blood Jell-O from the hard to reach parts of him? Blood Jell-O... That’s what it looked like, to Hank. Little globules of coagulated shiny stuff, and bits of plastic sticking to the back of his...casing. Lungs and heart exposed, wires everywhere, stuff connecting to other stuff, like his ‘Thirium pump regulator’... Wipe after wipe after wipe going into the container, and it smelled like death in there.  _ Thank you, Detroit Blood Bank, for your generous donation… _

At long last, he was done. Far as he could tell, in any case. “Better?” asked Hank, hoping Connor wouldn’t ask him to reach up behind his heart to wipe at his lungs again. He could do morbid, but that was a bit too close for comfort and not something he wanted to do again anytime soon. He  _ would  _ do it in a heartbeat (...bad pun, there), no questions asked - but he wouldn’t be any more comfortable for it.

“Not really,” was Connor’s quiet response. His smile seemed hesitant, unsure of its own existential value. “But I’m clean.”

Hank aimed for a smile, and threw the last wipe in the container. “Alright. In that case, let’s get you into something more comfy. Something nice and warm.”

He’d brought DPD issue trainers, sweatpants, t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt, and the socks and underwear courtesy of the nearest corner store bargain bin. It wasn’t ideal, but it was plain gray cotton. As far as quick fixes went, it was one of Hank’s better ones. Nice and neutral - and Connor’s (Stern’s) ID lingered at the forefront of his mind. Gender: neutral, ‘other’. Did it matter that someone at CyberLife’s R&D department thought he should be anatomically ‘correct’ to a male physique if he didn’t technically adhere to male attributes? Not to Hank, but he preferred to err on the side of caution, let Connor tell him if he’d done good or not. At least, he thought cynically, he hadn’t gone for tidy whities.

Underwear and socks came on without comment, Hank letting Connor take the lead and only stepping in to help him into the t-shirt and sweatshirt when asked to. Connor seemed...crisp, somehow, like a fine wafer ready to crack at the slightest tap of the spoon. It was a strange connotation for someone he knew to be so incredibly rock solid. Right here and now he seemed to Hank like a leaf on a branch, shivering at the end of autumn just waiting to let go and float into the wind. ...or a very thin tuile about to crack. Mixed analogies, but they made sense to his own brain, at least.

“How’s that?” he asked, once Connor sat there, feet dangling off the edge of the cold slab with some kind of nervous energy. His fingers gripped at the edge of the metal itself, his eyes darting everywhere but Hank.

“Better,” said Connor, still quiet (‘better’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘good’, but Hank’d take it). His fingers lifted from the slab, skirting along Hank’s arm, grasping, nails catching at the seams of his jacket. His eyes seemed to be searching for something but never going farther up than Hank’s collarbone. Rather than prod at a potentially sore spot, Hank left it at that, and returned to something more along the lines of business-as-usual.

“Barnes has been asking to see the investigator in charge of the shooting for the past two hours. I figure he’s waited long enough, but...look, if you want to, I can give you a ride back to my place. You can stay as long as you like, defrag or...decompress, whatever the right term is. You know?”

Connor’s eyes darted up to meet his, but faltered within seconds. He shrugged, nodding and shaking his head at the same time. “I know… But, you should talk to Barnes. He’s a key witness. It would be remiss of you to blow him off because of me.”

‘Blow him off’... Hank scarcely avoided a grin. Since when did Connor ever use phrasings like that? It was charming, and new, and-- ever so slightly surreal. Like a week ago now, listening to him talk to Fowler, about the stink eye and classmates, ferreting stuff out and being done for. Connor had picked up a whole new set of vernacular, and what else could Hank do but find it absolutely charming?

“In that case, I suppose the real question is if you want to observe my interview.”

Connor pursed his lips, and nodded no more than once. It was all the answer Hank needed. First Barnes, then home, and Connor could take as much time as he needed to shed the skin he’d been occupying these past few months. The entire couch had his name on it.

Come to think of it, Hank’s entire house did.

*

In the cold, harsh lights of the Interrogation Room, Barnes seemed a very small man. He sat in his chair, shoulders hunched up high with tension, shivering hands reaching up to clean his glasses with a crisp, beautifully patterned silk handkerchief. Hank sat down in the chair opposite, sliding the case folder to the very center of the table.

“I appreciate you taking the time to come to us, Mr Barnes,” he said, the very epitome of professionalism. “And I apologize for taking so long. It’s just that I got called away to a homicide, and-- you know how it is. The dead ain’t in a hurry to get anywhere.”

“...quite,” stuttered Barnes. “Now, what I want to know is what you’re doing about this. Someone tried to kill me in broad daylight. Grand Circus Park, around eleven o’clock.”

“Hm.” Hank leveled the middle-aged man with a cool, assessing look. He really wasn’t much older than Hank, but marked (perhaps) by an ongoing disregard for human life. Or life, period. He seemed rather old and tired in that chair. Hank turned the folder around, and he could positively see the way Barnes’s spine stiffened in apprehension.

“Why don’t you start at the top? What brought you to the park at that time of day?”

Barnes folded his pocket square, then changed his mind about the state of his glasses and plucked them off his nose again. “I was having brunch with a friend. Picnic at the park.”

Hank nodded, biding his time. “Friend have a name?”

“Stern. Connor Stern.”

At least he was forthcoming enough, Hank thought to himself, and pursed his lips back and forth over his tooth gap. “Did anyone else know you were going to be there, at that particular time? Is this something you do often?”

“No, it’s--” Barnes sighed, looking dejected. “It was a spur of the moment thing, I-- I called him this morning, asked if he wanted to join me.” He straightened up at that, like all the individual pieces of his spine settling into their proper position. “I’m sure you know who I am, Lieutenant Anderson. From the tabloids and the recurring allegations of criminal activity. I have enemies, but he doesn’t, and he was  _ right there _ when the bullets started flying. I think he might be hurt. Everything happened so fast-- He isn’t answering his phone.”

Funny how the world works, that you could sit across from a man who’d showed an absolute disregard for life, artificial or otherwise, and still feel some little sliver of empathy for him. Barnes didn’t know, or he’d been faking it ‘til he made it for so long he’d forgotten how to do anything else. Hank’s cop instincts told him this wasn’t an act. Barnes really didn’t know.

“Walk me through what happened. You were having a picnic at the park. Exactly what happened right before the...bullets started flying, like you said?”

Barnes pressed visibly dry lips together, and recounted the last few moments before the shooting - Stern was being a showoff, as always, dressed up in something he was going to wear for an event they were both attending. “I don’t recall exactly what we were talking about, just-- banter, chatting about the big night, and he...got up and  _ twirled _ , right in front of me, and then…”

Silence could be a heavy burden to bear. Especially for someone with a guilty conscience. Hank could see it in the twitching of Barnes’s eyebrows - he was worried, drawing up worst case scenarios in his mind, no doubt. Wondering if he’d missed something vital in the mad dash to safety. “Then-- that  _ noise _ . Stern ducked faster than you can imagine, and Smythe and Bosch rushed me back to the car. I counted at least four shots-- Oh, God…”

The reality of it all was sinking in, and fast. That maybe his friend didn’t duck for cover faster than you could say ‘sucker punch’. Hank slid his hand across the table, pushing the folder closer to the other man. “Mr Barnes. I’ve just returned from a homicide at Grand Circus Park. I’m sorry to inform you that your friend got caught in the fire. He didn’t make it.”

*

Connor watched from the Observation Room, marveling at his own detachment. Fowler stood next to him, arms crossed over his big chest, fingers tapping an impatient beat against his skin. Connor felt numb, cut off from the rest of the world, as if he really did die just a few hours ago, mourned by no one but an unscrupulous drug dealer who’d happily steal the very lifeblood of any android he came across just to feed his appetite for money and--  _ more  _ money. And Hank, sitting across him like some ancient monument of patience, showing him empathy. Despite everything else he was, Hank didn’t rub it in that he’d left his ‘friend’ in a pool of his own blood. Quite the opposite - Hank was quiet, quietly  _ compassionate _ , warning the target of the entire operation that the photos were grim, but he was free to look if he wanted to.

_ ‘Is this the friend you were talking about? This is the person you know as Connor Stern?’ _

Nico nodded, his entire face shivering with knee jerk emotion.  _ ‘He can’t be dead! He-- ducked out of the way-- Smythe said, he-- He can’t be dead. He’s a force of nature...’ _

Hank, still quiet, moved like an ancient deity, turning the pages of living history. The first spread held Stern’s official ID and a general description of the victim; the next one held the crime scene photographs.  _ ‘He was shot in the back, long range. From what we can tell from the crime scene, he died in a matter of seconds. He didn’t suffer.’ _

The empathy Hank showed right there and then was more than Connor felt capable of, and yet he was torn between knowing what Nico was planning to do, and knowing the quiet, lonely man that he was behind his drug lord persona. How morally sound was it to kind of like someone who was known to make people ‘disappear’ into the river? Someone who profited on addiction and pain?

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Connor said suddenly, feeling like something was going to give out on the inside, as if he was about to blow a fuse, even though he didn’t have any. “Tell Hank I’m sorry, I can’t be here.”

“You, what?”

But Connor had already pulled the hood over his head, picking out a longer hairstyle from his settings, dark, gray brown, and a five o’clock shadow to match. He had to get away. Even if it just meant jogging all over downtown as long as it took-- the vertigo to end, for the taste of Thirium at the back of his throat to fade away, for him to stop feeling Hank’s careful, gentle hands tucking alcohol wipes into the deepest nooks and crannies of his chest cavity-- 

***

_ Say what you will about Connor, but he was  _ literally _ built to work under tremendous amounts of pressure. In fact, some ( _ i.e  _ CyberLife’s R&D department) would go so far as to say he worked  _ even better _ under pressure, that he was at optimum capacity when suitably stressed. On March 6, he’d exhausted his options as to where Barnes kept his little black book - and more likely, it wasn’t just the one, but an entire collection of them - bar one location. Barnes’s house, which was an art deco palace restored to its former Roaring 30’s glory and upgraded with all the modcons of the 2030s. It was sleek, curved, and pure white, surrounded by high walls and a security system that was virtually unhackable. Connor had been there several times, of course, and had ample opportunity to get acquainted with the system itself, even bypassed it. But he’d never come unattended - always tagging along Barnes for a night of music and drinking and talking. _

_ Tonight was different. Connor skulked down the street, connecting to the security system from 500 meters, lending him control of everything from the alarm to the CCTV to the motion detectors. He was invisible, silent, moving like a ghost through walls - except he used the front door. He pressed his bare hand to the control panel, bypassing the lock. No one was home - everyone at the club, and they’d stay there for at least another hour. He would have more than enough time to give the house a thorough search, find the book(s), and scan them...one page at a time. _

_ Sometimes, undercover work wasn’t quite so glamorous. _

_ All Connor really cared about was finding the hand written notes, so he’d have something to show for after almost three months of endlessly analyzing data about a man and his psyche and his businesses and his associates and his ‘corporate’ structure. All he needed was some hard evidence that linked Nicholas Barnes to all his dirty laundry. A list in Nonstick Nick’s own handwriting, detailing transactions that could be linked to specific shipments of supplies, or specific people? That was his ticket home. And he’d find the damn thing if it was the last thing he did. _

_ It very nearly was. _

_ 3:31AM Connor sat engrossed over a stack of notebooks in Nico’s bedroom, inside what was technically a panic room hidden away behind an enormous bookcase, when suddenly he heard the car approaching the house. The security footage was wiped, the CCTV freeze framed - he wasn’t worried about that. It would look like a momentary glitch, nothing more. Timestamps and such altered accordingly at a moment’s notice. But there was the issue of what to do about himself. He could pull the bookcase shut, effectively locking himself into the panic room until everyone left again. It could take hours - precious time he’d have to explain away if Nico tried calling him. Where  _ had _ he been, if not at work, at home, or at the club? _

_ On the upside, if he stayed in the panic room, he could continue scanning every page of every notebook - and he was right about their numbers. There were lots of them, dating back several years. _

_ Downside was, he’d be trapped. If Nico, for whatever reason, decided to grab something from the panic room...or leave his current notebook in there for safekeeping, Connor would be caught dead. Very caught, and very dead. _

_ The statistical probability of the latter scenario was incredibly high, but something occurred to him as he slipped out of the panic room and crawled under the kingsize bed. That wasn’t Nico’s car. He drove a Tetsuo, the latest innovation in electric automobiles. This was a much older car, and as he looked through the lens of the CCTV camera he saw a familiar profile stepping out of it, squared off jaw and a broken nose. _

_ Llewellyn Smythe stepped up to the camera at the door and held up a big manila envelope. He was on the phone. ‘Yeah, personal delivery like you asked. I’m right outside yer door, pushing it through the hatch as we speak. Everything’s in there. Everything, hard copies. Even got a criminal record, wouldja believe that. Yeah. It’s done.’ _

_ Connor knew then, that his hunch about Smythe was right. He had been checking up on him, digging as deep as he could. He sounded unbelievably smug about it, too. _

_ ‘Nothing major. Petty theft and conjobs. Alleviating the monetary burden of the rich and privileged. Looks like a zebra can’t change its stripes, eh?’ _

_ Beneath the sizable bed, Connor rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, mouthing ‘Leopard, spots’ in its general direction. Smythe left his package, and went back down the path, none the wiser of the intruder in his partner’s bedroom. Connor went back to business the moment his car left the front yard. No time to waste, no time to lose, and the sooner he had everything, the sooner he could exit stage right. _

_ He was safe. For the time being. _

*

_ ‘So, how about it? Late breakfast, early lunch in the sunshine?’ _

_ Connor put on an easy smile, already moving. This was the chance he’d been waiting for, two days after his breaking and entering, and not a day too soon. ‘It’s called ‘brunch’, jackass. And I’d love to, thank you. Where? Nowhere too public, I hope.’ _

_ ‘Grand Circus Park,’ Nico told him, and immediately Connor’s mind started working, sending out messages to everyone to set things in motion. _

_ ‘...that old place? A  _ park _ , really?’ _

_ ‘I was thinking we could have a picnic. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.’ _

_ ‘ _ Half an hour--! _ ’ Connor feigned (mock) outrage. ‘Give a guy a chance to put his face on, for shit’s sake!’ _

_ He could hear Nico’s smile in his voice, and he relented without much of a fight. ‘Alright. Forty-five, and not a minute later. I’m hungry.’ _

_ ‘Alright. See ya!’ _

_ Connor ended the call with a jab of thumb-to-screen, and slipped into the bathroom. It was time to move, and time, as always in these circumstances, was of the essence. He pulled his long-sleeved t-shirt off and unhinged his front plate, setting it aside in the shower stall, out of harm’s way. He had to pack his torso full of human blood, real and fake. There had to be enough of it for effect, but also for the smell. He couldn’t be sure if Barnes would stay with him despite Markus’s expert marksmanship, but if he did, he had to believe every last bit of this, Connor’s last performance as Stern. The blood bag lining his back plate would rupture when he was shot - that was the plan - and the slabs of gel would keep the bags in place when he moved. When he was on the ground, he could turn up his own temperature, causing the gel to melt. It would only take a few degrees. _

_ It had to work. He had to die, and it had to be the performance of a lifetime. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present, Hank and Connor try to navigate the depths of human and android emotion.
> 
> In the not so distant past, Barnes draws a few conclusions of his own, and he isn't happy about them. Not. At. All.

* * *

In Hank’s very humble opinion, kismet could suck his balls. The moment Connor’s well and truly back in his life, he pulls a (runaway man) fast one on him and disappears into the city. Worse yet, Hank knew in his bones he wouldn’t find him unless he wanted to be found. Fowler was as perplexed as him, saying that he up and bolted. Fowler barely had a chance to react before he was gone without a trace. Hank faintly entertained the notion of issuing a BOLO, but it would either be a) overkill or b) a waste of resources.

More likely than not, it would be both - but it was the sense of being overbearingly protective that grated at him the most (and ultimately kept him from doing something stupid). He finished up paperwork like he would have any other case, everything neat and ordered, evidence from both primary and secondary crime scenes bagged, tagged and uploaded to the database. Everything had to be done according to procedure, or someone might go digging where they had no business sticking a shovel.

It was long after the end of shift that Fowler approached his desk with a steaming cup of coffee. “Hey, Hank? Do me a favor?”

Hank looked up, expecting some form of reprimand. It’s how they rolled, more often than not. Instead his captain looked a lot more like his (very old) friend, the kind who isn’t afraid to get vocal about shit. “What?”

“Get outta here. Grab something to eat, watch the game, whatever. Connor’ll resurface when he’s ready. Get some R&R, and come back in the morning.”

Something tugged at Hank’s mouth. It felt like wry amusement. Maybe gratitude, but even that didn’t keep him from being a bit of a troll. “Bright eyed and bushy tailed?”

Fowler arched his eyebrows, mouth opening on a comeback that never materialized. He shook his head, mouth still open. Looked like one mental image too many. “Just go, Hank. I have to go scrub my brain.”

He grabbed his things from the desk, and touched his first two digits to his brow in a salute. He wasn’t going home, despite Jeffrey’s good intentions. He was going out to trawl the streets, looking for someone he used to know.

*

Three hours later, Hank came home more worried than he was when leaving the station. The thing about looking for someone is it requires some idea of where to start, some direction, and Hank had precious little of either. He simply ended up driving, aimless and drifting, like he imagined Connor - out here in the chilly Spring weather that was nothing like the springtime he remembered from his youth. He turned onto Michigan Drive, feeling nothing short of deflated. He felt like a tire that someone jammed a sharp instrument into.

He parked his car in front of the garage, as he always did, seeing as it was full of crap he never had time nor inclination to clear out. He locked the car, dragged his feet to the front door and unlocked it, dropped the keys on the table in the hallway and leaned into the door to shut it. The lamp in the far corner of the living room was on, just like the ones in the kitchen and the hallway. He liked keeping a few lights on, for Sumo’s sake. Even if he slept all day, barring his mandatory visit from the dogwalker, Hank didn’t think he should lead a life in the dark. At least this time of year, it was brighter in the day…

Leaving his jacket on the hanger by the door, he shuffled into the house, only to stop short. There was a shadow there that wasn’t supposed to be, someone sitting in what had become ‘Connor’s Spot’ on the couch. Someone in a DPD hoodie. The house was quiet as a tomb, but for one thing. Sumo was whining, this teeny, tiny, sound that consisted of more air than anything. As he walked further into the room, he saw the saddest little display of canine loyalty. Sumo was spread across the couch, front paws and chin propped up on one of his best friend’s thighs, looking up mournful and blue.

“...Connor? How-- How’d you get in here? You didn’t break another one of my windows, did you?”

Connor shook his head, which was downturned. His hand moved gently over the scruff of Sumo’s big neck. “You shouldn’t keep your spare key in such an obvious spot, Hank,” said Connor, his voice monotone and blank like a sheet of paper. Flat sounding. Robotic. Terrifying in ways Hank didn’t think possible, worse even than hearing #60 spit out venom at them both for what they’d become to each other.

Hank sat down in the armchair, seeing as there was no room left on the couch. Giving his friend a quick once over, one thing in particular stood out as alarming. Not the new hair, or the stubble, or the ever so slightly different complexion. Connor’s clothes were damp. It had been raining off and on in the evening, but from the state he was in it looked like he’d just...kept walking. It’s a forty minute drive to Michigan Drive… He didn’t know how long it took to walk here.

“I’ll have to think of a better place.” ‘Around the corner, in the portable BBQ grill I never use’ didn’t strike Hank as obvious in any shape or form, but he wasn’t a state of the art investigative android. However, the aforementioned android looked like Hell, and he didn’t feel like pointing that out. It was the wrong course of action.

“Don’t try to placate me, Hank, it doesn’t suit you.”

...looking like Hell, and in a _mood_ . Hank nodded slowly, and got up. Sumo was sad, and worried, which was by far enough reason for Hank to tread gently. “Alright. I’ma go make some coffee, and then _we_ are going to actually _talk_ about shit, like sentient beings.”

Didn’t matter if Connor was in some sort of fight/flight mode, Hank wasn’t going to bite. He was tired, overworked and quite frankly emotionally exhausted after the past week. He was not going to end up in a goddamn fight with the most important _goddamn_ person in the universe - but you know what they say about good intentions. Connor seemed to be of a different mind.

“Sentience is no guarantee for intelligence.”

He was halfway to the coffee machine when his very own paranoid android made that remark, and even though it wasn’t the worst he’d hear by far, it still stung just a bit. “Is that you calling me stupid, or yourself? ‘Cause I don’t agree with either.”

“I’m just stating the obvious.”

“Right.” Not. Biting. Hank went through the motions of coffee making, pot to the sink, water, back, water in machine, filter, coffee grinds, and didn’t make a fuss of things. Connor was alive, he was back, and he’d come here instead of wandering the streets all through the night. These were good things, right there. Even if this whole situation felt fraught with unseen dangers, somehow, Hank had to focus on the good bits. Even if Sumo wouldn’t stop whining. Hank left the sputtering coffeemaker behind, disappearing into the bedroom to find something dry for Connor to wear, something nice and warm. When he came back, Connor’s cheeks were wet with tears.

Hank turned to the fireplace, pushing the magical button that fired it up nice and warm, then turned to his love-what-dare-not-speak-its-name. “Let’s get you out of those clothes, huh? Come on, arms up. We got this, buddy.”

Silence stretched out between them as Hank helped Connor into a new pair of (Hank’s old) sweatpants and a t-shirt that was far too big for him, but whatever it was, it brought something out of him. Not a smile, not by a long shot, but a secret.

“Every time I shopped for new outfits, I thought of you,” Connor breathed out, quiet and brittle. Hank spread out his damp clothes over the armchair and parked his ass on the coffee table.

“Yeah?”

“This is exactly the sort of thing I thought you’d want me to buy…” There was a note of wonder to his voice as he looked at the front of the t-shirt. Knights of the Black Death it was, one of Hank’s old fanboy t-shirts that he didn’t fit into anymore. “Comfortable. Soft. Casual and warm.”

Hank hedged his bets on a smile. “Boring?”

“No… Just-- perfectly predictable.”

“Not exactly to Stern’s taste? Or Barnes’s?”

And therein lay whatever was eating at him. Hank caught the twitch to his frown lines, the way his mouth tugged sideways. Connor wasn’t angry at him, just set upon by too much stress and not enough of an outlet. Input not matching output, or something along those lines. Connor shook his head, and his chin started trembling. “We didn’t… It wasn’t...like that, he didn’t-- He just liked my company. We didn’t engage in sexual--” Connor’s voice cut off then, his hands coming up to hide his mouth from view, or to keep from saying anything more.

“You don’t have to tell me that. It’s none of my business, Connor… And even if you did, that doesn’t make you a bad person, or unprofessional, or whatever. Undercover work is bound to mess with anyone’s head, especially when you get in deep enough.”

It didn’t matter what he said, or how he said it. Connor was inconsolable, his eyes welling up with fresh tears. Sumo made a noise which could only be described as chastising - him, not Connor.

“I know, Sumo, I know,” he said, scruffing his big boy’s jowls. Telling Connor the way of things, also known as mansplaining shit, wasn’t going to cut it. He didn’t need to be told, just for someone to listen. The problem was he looked as if he might explode from all the words he couldn’t get out of his system. Hank knew the feeling from his past (and present) struggle with depression, that sometimes you just felt too many feelings at once, and more often than not the fear of being misunderstood or ridiculed kept him from saying things out loud. If things didn’t make sense to his own mind, why would it make sense to someone on the outside? Something like that. The coffee could wait.

“How can I help? Is there anything I can do?”

He knew the answer even before Connor shrugged and sighed like the world was ending. Well, Hank had news for them both - it was not. He just had to step up his game. “Alright. There’s too much going on in your head, right? Too much stuff and not enough room? Not enough space to sort things through, and everything’s a mess.”

The tentative nod was all the go-ahead he needed. Hank clasped his fingers loosely between his knees, staying put. Close enough but not too close. Don’t assume things, don’t make light of things just because they don’t seem like a big deal to you. “How about… I ask questions, you can nod or shake your head. If you show your palm, it means Don’t Fuckin’ Go There. That sound okay?”

It was a limited sort of methodology, but he figured they could start with simple, binary Y/N prompts and work their way up. Connor observed him, big eyed and sharp like a bird of prey. It felt like forever for his affirmative nod to finally materialize, but now that they were here Hank wasn’t going to do anything by halves. Connor pulled his knees up, arms wrapping around his legs. His toes wiggled inside their sock cages. Hank found it adorable. First things first, but where to start? The sentience not being equal to intelligence thing, or...the shopping for clothes with Hank in mind-- thing. There were clues there, in Connor’s snapping criticism, in the words he chose, but what they all meant was a mystery.

“Okay. Let’s start with Stern. From what I saw of him, he seemed like quite a character… That outfit? That was kickass. Badass. Did you like building him from the ground up? Or, them. The ID said ‘other’.”

Connor nodded, and even offered some clarification. “He/she/it, depending on the outfit. Or the day of the week.”

Hank arched his eyebrows, glad for the added info. First question in, and he already felt like they were making some form of progress. “Barnes seemed to really like them. He called Stern his friend… Do you think that’s mutual?”

The look on Connor’s face went from apprehensive to confused, eyes staring into the middle distance off to the side. After another slice of forever (realistically speaking, over a minute) he gave one single nod, and didn’t look at all happy about it. Hank pushed on.

“Did you like being Stern?”

And that, as they say, was that. Sore spot well and truly hit, Connor shook his head and nodded at the same time, and rather than keep schtum, he blurted out a stream of consciousness like it was a string of pearls.

“Everyone liked him, more than they would’ve liked _me_ , but I suppose that’s because they didn’t know he was me at the time, or that we’re an android, because he fit in so well-- He was confident, witty, sharp like a knife when necessary, and he didn’t _care_ if anyone had a problem with him, wasn’t my problem if they did… But everything he did was calculated for maximum effect. He was a manipulative piece of shit, because I had to be, but, I-I...I _liked_ getting results. I studied Barnes from every angle available, worked out a course of action, and it worked every step of the way. Barnes liked me, because I made him like me.”

Hank listened, barely moving a single muscle. Connor, like so many others in law enforcement, was hardwired for getting results. You didn’t quit, or you didn’t stay a cop for long. You stuck with it, never gave up, but pursued every lead to the end of the line. It only made sense that Connor liked seeing the fruits of his labor, and it wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to see how he might be uncomfortable about how he went about things. Lying and cheating were par for the course, and Hank had seen firsthand just what a shitty liar Connor was. He would’ve had to learn quickly, or he wouldn’t be sitting here on Hank’s couch, shivering like a leaf. Brittle. Crisp.

“You liked fitting in,” Hank murmured, voice low but gentle. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“But they didn’t like _me_ ,” Connor insisted, as if there was a point there somewhere that Hank was too blind to see. “They liked _him_ , they liked _Stern_ , because he’s everything I’m not, and now he’s gone, and I have to go back to being me again. He made friends so easily-- at the diner, with the neighbors, people at the nightclubs. I could never do that!”

“But you did. You _did_ do that, Connor.” Hank scooted closer, even with the limited space between his long legs and the couch. As if proximity could somehow emphasize his point.

“It was all fake! I kept thinking ‘How would Hank have tackled this situation?’ or ‘How would Hank have responded?’ and everything snowballed from there! It’s all fake!”

Later, Hank might just have a bit of a revelation in the middle of the night, to think Connor based Stern at least to some extent on him. And he might just grin into the dark, thinking he _is_ a bit of a prissy bitch, if pushed too far. But in the here and now he had other concerns, such as being there for his partner.

“Look, honey-- If you didn’t have it in you to start with, you couldn’t have faked _shit_ . Okay? Doesn’t matter if you took your cues from people you know, faking it only gets you so far. And you got this far because you used every last weapon at your disposal, right? All the wit cramped into your system, all of that incredible intellect, nobody else could have done this. _You_ made this happen. Not Stern, not anyone else. You. Only you.”

Right or wrong, it didn’t make things better. Connor still looked like he might crash at any second, blue screens galore, but at least he wasn’t crying. In some ways, the look in his eye was worse without the tears. He looked as if he’d come to a conclusion, and whatever it was, it filled Hank with dread.

“Then I’m a monster,” he whispered. “If it was all me, all along, then I’m a monster. How else could I explain being-- happy, in the company of a man who exploits thousands of human beings? Someone who wouldn’t think twice about kidnapping someone like me, drain them of blood, and throw away the parts like scrap metal? I liked him. The way he was with me, the way he treated me, the secrets he confided in me. He was _kind_ to me.”

To Hank’s ears, it sounded a lot like that other shoe. The one everyone keeps waiting for. This was the other side of the coin, no doubt. How could someone like Connor, whose moral compass pointed true north but didn’t always lead him down the right path-- how could he reconcile the fact he liked the person he’d crafted even if he was a bit of an arrogant brat to the person he was growing into after the revolution? And to top it all off, a hardened, ruthless criminal now mourned his alter ego’s passing. It wasn’t easy. It was going to have to be a bit of an ongoing process.

“No one else has your capacity for empathy…” Hank chose every word carefully, because he had a sense this was a make it or break it moment. If he should say the wrong thing now, Connor might bolt and never return. “It’s what I like so much about you. One of the things I like about you. But, the thing is, in my line of work you get to see the worst humanity has to offer. You get a sense for how even the best of people, the kindest, most generous souls can do the most horrendous things. And, sometimes, how even the worst of people can be kind to others, given the right circumstances. Right?”

Connor’s eyes were wide open. Hank could practically see his analytics software going at it a million blips or flops or whatever per second. Then he nodded, and at least for one moment there, Hank felt like he’d done it. But then Connor dropped a bombshell, just like he’d done in the interrogation room, out of the blue. Only this one was of a more personal nature.

“Do you still like me, Hank? You don’t think any less of me now? You do like me, don’t you?”

“What kind of a question is that?” This wasn’t at all a clever way of stalling the inevitable, like the flush of heat creeping up around his neck. “Of course I still like you. You’re my partner. We’re friends, I--”

*

It wasn’t the answer Connor wanted. He didn’t mind friendship as such, but he’d had this pressure building inside him for months now, and the only thing keeping everything locked up was his own strict compartmentalization - but that was getting more and more difficult to keep intact. Everything bled into each other, lines blurred, emotions blurred, until it was all one big creeping, slithering lump of fear. Hank had to like him, like before, or Connor didn’t know what to do with himself. They’d lost months of what could have been already, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing that forward momentum altogether. Perhaps it was that fear that pushed him forward, or something even less palatable, like desperation, that had him crawl onto Hank’s lap. The coffee table creaked ominously beneath their combined weight even though Connor didn’t weigh much more than the average ragdoll. His mind palace brought up his settings menu, scrolling through options, scrolling, scrolling and never able to settle on something definitive.

“I’ll be anything you want me to be, Hank. Anything at all. Just tell me what you like. Do you prefer brunettes? I have an entire catalog of hair colors and styles. Textures.”

Hank’s face was a vision - blood red cheeks that set off his crisp blue eyes, his mouth open on a sound that never made it out. Connor lifted his hands, cupping his face. The beard tickled his palms in the most delicious way.

**[Settings - physical appearance - nails - shape - color]**

Longer nails morphed into existence thanks to CyberLife nanotechnology, long and pearlescent. “Do you like your partners to have long nails? How long? What about a general aesthetic?”

**[Settings - physical appearance - face - complexion]**

**[Settings - physical appearance - face - skin tone]**

**[Settings - physical appearance - face - skin texture]**

**[Settings - physical appearance - face - eyebrows]**

**[Settings - physical appearance - face - eyes - eye color]**

He had to find the perfect combination of features to best suit Hank’s personal preferences, but the more he changed his looks the more alarmed Hank looked. Blond didn’t suit, nor did chestnut or auburn - Hank didn’t seem to like any eye color better than the next - youthful, flawless skin did nothing for him - nothing worked. Nothing got the response he wanted, nothing made Hank look at him like Barnes had that night he _really_ got his attention. No desire. Not even the slightest hint of wanting to possess him.

“Connor… Sweetheart-- Stop that, it’s okay. You don’t have to change anything for me.”

The words didn’t register. Nothing made sense. He felt like he was falling off the edge of a tall building, like he would never hit the ground. “Don’t you want me? You have to want me, Hank, please-- Please, tell me what to do.”

Everything was spiralling out of control - until it wasn’t, anymore. Until Hank reached behind him, stood up and picked him up, turned around and sat down on the couch with Connor’s legs across his lap. Then he grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over them both, like a cocoon of warmth, and looked him straight in the eye. He’d looked at him like this before, many, many times, but Connor had never been quite sure of what it meant. Until this very moment.

“‘Don’t I want you?’ _I love you._ Ferchrissakes. I want you to be yourself, whatever that means to you. If it means you’ll keep some of the things you liked about being Stern, that’s fine by me. If you want to try and go back to the person you were before, that’s also fine. I don’t think that guy ever left, he’s just been added to. Grown a bit. Spread his wings? Realized he can be a kickass-- badass if he wants? You don’t have to choose between two distinct versions of who you are. Nothing’s ever that black and white. Would be hellishly boring if it was, though, huh?”

...outside ChickenFeed, after they both survived the revolution and Hank yanked him into a hug and a kiss on the cheek; talking basketball strategy and MVPs in his livingroom; Hank talking him through how to make _the best_ grilled cheese even though he couldn’t eat; Hank asking him to be his Plus One for the Christmas party while simultaneously playing it down, saying it wouldn’t be a _date_ date; watching Hank hurrying towards him at the playground, so happy to see him he pulled him into a bear hug...and a kiss to the cheek… Hank holding him, keeping him from bursting at the seams after he came out of standby at the morgue; Hank looking at him every now and then while cleaning him out, clearly uncomfortable but not complaining about it a single time.

“You love me.”

Hank was still watching him, still had that look in his eyes. “Yup.”

“But...I love you, too.”

“Is that so,” said Hank through what was quickly turning into a cheeky grin. “Whodathunkit, huh?”

Somewhere in the shuffle around, Sumo had sat up like a good puppy. His tail was wagging, clearly excited but subdued. He knew what leap of faith Connor had struggled to dare all along. No one knew Hank better than his canine companion. Everything was going to be alright, in the end. Humans and androids could be compatible.

Cocooned by Hank’s arms and the blanket, curled up against him, Connor changed back to his default settings. With everything going on inside of him, he had to figure out a way to process things. It was easier to talk like this, with Hank’s steady heartbeat on his visual grid, easier to imagine what he might be like if he decided to incorporate the things he liked about Stern - like the confidence, the not taking shit from anyone, maybe even the clothes he liked. Why not keep the things he enjoyed and forget about the things he didn’t?

They talked for hours, about Connor’s fears of what he might do to Barnes’s associates - drive off in Hank’s car, break into their residences, kill them all before they could kill a single android - the gripping horror of knowing what they had planned. The fear of knowing the justice system wasn’t flawless, and that they might get off on a technicality. Hank listened to him, and stroked his back until he felt so warm he couldn’t tell his own body heat apart from Hank’s, and before he quite knew how they got there, they were trading kisses in the dark, like whispered secrets. Hank held him through the night, while Sumo snuggled right up next to them both - the three of them integral parts of the same unit.

For the first time since his activation, Connor knew what it felt like to be part of a family.

***

_Earlier that same day, Nicholas Barnes sat in the backseat of his classic Lincoln town car, watching the streets pass him by. There was something about the shooting that rubbed him the wrong way, the way Lieutenant Anderson had presented it. It struck him as funny, that a single bullet made a connection with anything other than wood and shrubbery. Funny also, that only his closest associates, most trusted employees, knew where he was going to be that morning. Funny, downright fucking hilarious, that the shooter waited, and waited until Connor got to his feet and danced right in front of him. They’d had a clear line of sight all morning. They’d sat there for over half an hour, chatting and sipping goddamn smoothies, and nothing happened until Connor moved._

_One train of thought led to another, with dozens of stations in between, and there was yet another thing in this whole mess that tickled his funny bone. Smythe had been pestering him since the day Stern clocked him, to run a background check, look into his job, his apartment, everything. Pestering him, yapping at him like a fuckin’ terrier. Finally he gives in. Smythe puts everything he finds into a neatly ordered manila folder, hand delivers the thing. Fair enough. But not two days after he looks at the checkered past of his friend and decides it doesn’t matter if he’s got a bit of a history - he ends up dead. Shot in the back by a sniper several hundred yards away, up on some rooftop in the distance._

_Nico shifted his gaze from the outside world and let it pan sideways into the plush interior of the car. He settled his eyes quite calmly on his right hand man, who was trying very hard indeed not to look at him. Also funny._

_“Say, Smythe? You saw Stern take cover, right?”_

_“Yessir. Ducked faster than the blink of an eye, he did.”_

_Barnes nodded, steepled his hands in front of his mouth, and returned to his observations of the outside world. If you were going to lie to him, the least you could do was put some effort into it. Show some respect._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present, Hank and Connor keep on keeping on. Debriefing is had, and someone arranges a surprise. Connor realizes a truth or two from his time inhabiting Stern's skin, as it were. Gavin Reed gets a crash course.
> 
> In the very recent past, the very same morning, in fact, Barnes instills a few truths of his own in his right hand man. A mystery begins to unravel, with terrible consequences.

* * *

Some would say that in an ideal world, they would have stayed on the couch all night, wrapped up in each other’s arms. The reality of it was Hank wasn’t technically an old man, but he also wasn’t in his twenties anymore, which meant one or two things involving a sore body and the necessity of a middle of the night visit to the ‘old porcelain god’ as he called it. From Connor’s point of view, there was nothing inherently wrong with either of these things: they simply _were_ , just like he couldn’t indefinitely go without entering standby mode or making safety backups of his data at set intervals. They could have stayed on the couch through the night, wrapped into each other's arms and he would have been perfectly happy. Instead, they relocated to the bedroom, Connor curling up under the duvet, with the blanket from the living room spread across the bed. Hank joined him in a matter of minutes, and...Connor was perfectly happy. He didn’t want for an ideal when he had the real thing, falling asleep in ten seconds flat right there beside him. Hank was exhausted, and comfortable, and curled up around him like a cross between a bear and an octopus. Connor found the whole thing quite charming. Endearing, even.

By morning Sumo had decided to join them like an added precaution against the cold, and once Hank stirred none of them felt like getting out of bed. It was safe, being bundled up in the warmth of a certified cuddle pile. Hank mumbled at him, groggy with sleep, saying that he’d missed him, missed their late nights together and Connor’s interesting factoids and ‘the handy image viewer’. Hank chortled in the dark, his own joke catching up with him and enticing Connor into a fresh bout of chuckles. He moved his hand over Hank’s chest, indulging in the tactile sensations of his chest hair through the thin cotton t-shirt, and just...the softness of the human anatomy. All these layers firmly attached to a hard but fragile structure. Hank’s chest was equal parts soft and squishy from excess subcutaneous fat and somewhat enlarged mammary glands, and equal parts hard from the underlying muscle.

“...I think my manboobs are firmly attached, there, Connie,” Hank murmured, his voice low and raspy, but void of judgment. “No risk of them comin’ loose anytime soon.”

“Oh.” Connor’s hand stilled over Hank’s chest. He could feel a blush rising to his face. “Right. Got it.”

“Eh, no worries. You can grope me all you want. I’m just messing with you.”

Reassuring as it was to know he hadn’t overstepped a line there, Connor’s attention latched onto something else. “Why ‘manboobs’?” It didn’t strike him as something flattering, as a word. Was there a negative connotation there, or…?

But Hank shrugged in response, letting his hand glide down Connor’s spine like it was something familiar. They had always felt very comfortable around each other, once the initial hurdles were done away with. This was nothing if not an extension of that ease of being that he’d missed, being away.

“I like it. It’s descriptive and accurate… I identify as a man, they are boobs, so why not call ‘em what they are?”

Pulling back slightly, Connor propped himself up on his arms and gave Hank a searching look. Was it really that simple? That if someone used a supposedly unflattering word to describe you or your characteristics, you could simply...appropriate it? A quick reference search told him, in one word: yes. It really was that simple. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it… In one fell swoop, Hank had settled Connor’s fear of his self esteem veering on the self deprecating side of things, and reassured him that choosing who or what you were didn’t have to be more complicated than deciding ‘this is me’.

Connor grinned so bright and so big that it teased an answering smile from Hank. “What?”

“If you want to call them what they are, they’re called ‘mammary glands’.”

“Smartass,” said Hank through his pearly whites, voice light with amusement.

“Mammal,” said Connor, and leaned in for a kiss.

Of course, Sumo chose that moment to yap out loud, as if to give them both a reality check. Dogwalk time was officially here. Hank cursed under his breath, but stole a smooch all the same before wriggling his way out from under the covers, android lover and 250 pounds of overgrown puppy.

*

Later that morning, Connor tagged along Hank to the station for debriefing. He spent most of the ride there going through web stores, picking out clothes and accessories with Hank’s express permission to use his card. _Pick something nice_ , said Hank, and they both knew what that meant. Connor had leeway to figure out what _he_ liked the look of, or feel of, and they could go from there. Not just a basic set of clothes, but...more than that. This was his first step towards true self expression. The possibilities spread out before him were enough to give him something not unlike palpitations. Hank promised it was okay to go overboard, because if something didn’t fit when he tried it on, they’d just send it right back. “That’s what return policies are for,” said Hank.

Daunting. That’s the word for it. It would be a daunting task to assemble a wardrobe that expressed _who_ he was, rather than who (or what) he _was_ \- the person behind the design - if not for Hank’s encouragement.

“You should’ve seen me in my outfits…” Connor said, not without a pang of wistfulness for the freedom he’d tasted.

“Yeah? You’ll have to tell me all about them.”

Connor looked over as Hank turned the car onto the parking lot behind the station. Hank met his gaze with a grin and a wink, and somehow it felt like a seal of approval. He wouldn’t have to worry about Hank disapproving of the choices he made as Stern, or feel embarrassed for how different he was. Or the scene he caused… He’d have to drop by the reception area later, apologize profusely for calling Aiden a dumb bitch…

*

If you asked Hank, debriefing was a straightforward affair. All the agents and officers in charge of the op were either seated in the meeting room or joining in by way of video call. Hank sat by his desk, sipping his second cup of coffee. Even though he couldn’t hear a word, he didn’t have to. Connor was up front, walking everyone through his findings, directing the human officers to files or paragraphs or footage on their tablets. Swipe, swipe - and Connor answered everyone’s questions like a borne professional. Which he was.

“You coming, or what?”

Hank looked away from his current fixation and gave Tina a nod that said, in as many words, ‘Hell yeah’. They had very important business to attend to.

*

In Connor's not so humble opinion, debriefing was a circus - incredibly well organized chaos, from start to finish, but like any professional Connor made it look easy. From the moment he stepped into the meeting room he knew he would have to positively embody confidence, maybe even assert a bit of authority of his own. Five sets of eyes judged him within seconds, and it was clear as day from where he was standing that he’d have to win them over. Every last one of them - because it wasn’t just his own reputation at stake, it was Fowler’s. He was the one who had brought him in, the one who had organized everything, and the others had trusted him to send his best and brightest, most capable officer. To find out he was an android (the first thing out of Fowler’s mouth, as introductions were made)... An _android_ . How could _an android_ possibly have done what no one else could?

Connor looked each and every one of them in the eye, one set after the other. This wasn’t the time and place for showing off, but he realized with a spark of inspiration that he could use some of the tricks he’d employed as Stern. But instead of asking himself how Hank would handle this, he asked himself how _he_ would, if he was just a little bit more sure of himself. If he’d learned nothing else as Stern, he had learned to steal the spotlight and relish the attention. Time to take center stage, and _own it_.

He answered every question as succinctly as he could, referencing data points and collected evidence, and even the more cynical members of this secret operation came away with a different tonal quality to their voice once all was said and done. That Fowler had recruited an android to infiltrate the most impenetrable organization in the entire state ceased to be an issue once it became clear he knew exactly what he was talking about. Not only that, but he had cracked the code because he viewed the world without the same bias of a human. He viewed Barnes differently. Maybe they weren’t going to entertain the idea that _no one else_ could have got the same results, ie a human agent, but Connor got the sense that they were suitably impressed by him all the same.

“Well done, Detective,” said Fowler once the meeting was over and everyone was returning to their own turf. Now they just had to arrange for a fake funeral, follow up on their initial interviews with the witnesses and Stern’s acquaintances, and build the case against Barnes before he put two and two together.

“Thank you, Captain.”

Fowler patted him on the shoulder, steering them both towards the break room. “Before you go, there’s something I need to run by you. If you don’t mind?”

Connor blinked, struggling to think of what that might be, although there was a 100% probability of it being work related. “By all means, sir.”

“Best Christmas song of all time - _All I Want for Christmas is You_ or _I’ll Be Home for Christmas_ ? Ooh, or _The Christmas Song_?”

They kept walking, until suddenly the break room was right there, and a series of conflicting data points scrolled down his visual grid at the same time - the scent of spices and chocolate and coffee, eight smiling faces, the sound of cheering, mistletoe and a banner spelling out ~MERRY X-MAS!~ hanging from the ceiling, and-- music coming from the tv set on the wall. Garlands and red bows and...a dancing Santa automaton in the corner?

Everyone was wearing Santa hats...in the middle of March… And-- slowly the words of the song trickled into his immediate awareness, which didn’t necessarily help things, because he didn’t know if he wanted to remember the way he felt about Barnes’s nightclub playing nothing but weird amalgamations of Christmas songs and-- but… The curl of Hank’s lips made all the difference, just like the gap of his front teeth, front and center in that widening grin.

_Take a trip down Candy Cane Lane with me_

_I'll call Rudolph down to meet us in the street_

_We can dance, he can prance_

_There's no can'ts, 'cause you're everything that's possible_

The break room erupted in holiday cheer at the sight of them, and Fowler looked like he’d won the jackpot. Tina, Chris and Ben shared a happy dance in the corner, and all Connor could possibly do was let himself be swept up by the moment. A Christmas party three months after the fact, all for him… Everyone cheering, wishing him a happy holiday and welcome back, and congratulating him on a job well done; handshaking and backslapping and hugs, it was as if he was one of them. Part of the team, part of their team, brought into the fold at long last. He gravitated towards Hank, who looked caught between suitably festive and a bit like a mall santa called in at the last minute - but Connor didn’t really care, because Hank had a hat for him, too, and they could all look a bit silly for the sake of good cheer and festive spirits.

“Sorry about the rush job,” said Chris, with Tina chiming in that it wasn’t a rush job at all, just a poorly organized one. Collins bemoaned the fact they didn’t have time to set up a proper Christmas tree - again, Connor didn’t care, because he realized with a flurry of excitement that it’s true what they say about intent, and sentiment trumping all. It’s the thought that counts, and the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling beckoned him like an old obsession. His eyes met his partner’s with an unspoken question. Would it be a step too far, or too soon, but Hank just gave him that warm, softened look that sent sparks throughout his system. They met halfway, arms going around each other in a firm hug, when suddenly someone spoke up loud enough to cut through the music and cheer.

“What the feck? Plastic Fantastic drops by, and Santa vomits all over the goddamn place? Get a godfuckin’ _room_...”

It was like the nightclub, the night before New Year’s Eve, when Connor got the attention of the masses by breaking an unwritten rule of conduct. He’d crashed someone’s party and gotten away with it, and now here came Reed, doing much the same. This time there was no jolt of energy, no spark suddenly lit in everyone’s bellies. Quite the opposite. Reed was quite possibly the most highly evolved wet blanket in the history of humankind. Connor could feel his own core temperature dropping to alarmingly low levels, only to snap back like a bungee jumper. Too low, too high, and he had to wonder if that’s what humiliation felt like. Well. He wasn’t going to let it stick. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Reed’s _opinion_ of him, and now was the time to make that perfectly clear. Any other time, Hank would have spoken up, but this time he didn’t get the chance. Connor tilted his head, chin and eyes angled towards the source of malcontent.

“I don’t recall asking your opinion, Detective. Please withhold it until further notice.”

He turned his eyes on Hank, wordlessly staying his proverbial hand - this was a carefully calculated maneuver, and judging by the look in Hank’s eyes he noticed it perfectly well. How long had it been since he started letting go of his preprogrammed lexicon and let colloquialisms and slang and jargon slip into conversation? Months, now. He knew this was a step back from the crash course of the past two months, and who better to catch his drift than Hank? They waited for the other shoe to drop, because Reed didn’t have a clue. He went to the coffee machine, chucklesnorting the way he did, condescendingly amused.

“The Pez dispenser speaks!”

“Reed, for crying out loud--” Fowler began to say, but stopped when Connor turned around. Maybe he had changed over the weeks undercover, because he’d never been able to silence anyone just with a look, let alone a superior.

“Alright, alright,” Reed chuckled, playing nice in front of the boss. What he didn’t count on was turning around only to come face to face with the Pez dispenser himself. He jumped where he stood, spilling coffee down his front, hissing and spitting curses as he patted himself down with paper towels - at Connor, at androids in general, dancing too close to the fire and unaware of the danger. That’s the thing about Reed - he had underestimated Connor from day one - and though this encounter was very much like every single one they’d had in the past, one very important thing was different. Connor.

Connor, who looked Reed over with the most clinically assessing look in his reference database, and proceeded to ask him a very simple question. “Did I ask your opinion?”

It was the last straw - just as Connor had calculated. “What? Who the _fuck--?!_ Ask my opinion? Ya plastic prick, I’ll give you my opinion and you’ll feckin’ _take it!_ ”

“No.” Connor picked out a very professional smile, which in this particular context could only be read as sarcastic. “Let me put this in terms you understand.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, and leaned down so they were at eye level with one another. There were only a couple inches between them where height was concerned, and while Connor didn’t care about such trivial things, he knew Reed did - and he was not above playing dirty. This wasn’t about their height difference as such, but about the gesture itself. Connor was literally stooping to Reed’s level, literally and figuratively, while maintaining the moral high ground. At least, that was the plan. Sometimes you had to fight fire with fire.

“You can bitch all you want about androids ruining the world, nobody cares. No one gives a shit about your opinion. Not them. Not me. Now, why don’t you do everyone a favor and make yourself scarce?”

Reed’s face seemed to shrink into itself, the way they sometimes did after consuming something too acidic, but instead of a scathing comeback or even a physical blow, the detective did something else entirely. He dumped what was left in his cup over Connor’s head, causing his skin to retract when burned. Numbers flashed across his visual grid, red numbers denoting physical damage done to his chassis, but it was nothing compared to what he’d lived through the past 24 hours. Connor’s arm shot out like a reticulated python, hand grabbing Reed by the collar at the front of his neck and shoving him into the hallway.

“And I’m made up of the most advanced _intermetallic alloys_ in the _world_ ,” he added, calm as ever. No one else dared say a word as Reed scurried off, not a drop of coffee to show for it.

Connor came away from it shaking on the inside, unsure whether he should pump the air with his fist or apologize profusely for his behavior. He landed somewhere in the middle, eyes searching the faces of his friends and former co-workers, and the captain, who was an ally as much as his superior officer. Somehow he couldn’t stop grinning, and yet his social interaction matrix seemed set to default when under pressure. Strange how he could risk his own life and not so much as flinch in the face of terror, but interpersonal confrontation made his palms sweat. If his palms could sweat, they would be dripping right now. “Captain, I, I’m so-- _terribly sorry_ , that was _completely out of line_ , that won’t happen again--!”

Fowler nodded, holding up his hand to show the open palm. The gesture did the trick, quieting Connor’s worries through the magic of body language and micro mimicry. Fowler seemed...amused.

“Make sure it doesn’t, Detective, or we’re going to have a meeting with HR next time we bring you in. Alright, everyone. Turn up the music, and get your asses back to work!”

Chen patted his arm on her way past, Miller winked at him, and Collins handed him a bunch of paper towels, looking rather like the grimacing face emoji. Wilson clinked his mug of spiced coffee to Hank’s, and suddenly there they were, the only ones left in the break room. _Candy Cane Lane_ kept playing, and Hank stood right there, under the mistletoe, looking very smug indeed.

“Don’t,” Connor warned him, even as Hank grabbed a bunch of towels to come help with the situation.

“What?”

“Quote Mariah Carey, or I’ll have to cut all ties with you.”

Hank _grinned_ at him, relieving him of the sopping wet Santa hat. Between the two of them, it took all of two minutes to get him somewhat dry, if a bit stained. “Feels like déjà vu, doesn’t it? You covered in coffee, looking like a million bucks…”

 _Like a million bucks, huh?_ “You have a thing for dramatic coffee waste, Lieutenant?”

“Nah. But I love seeing you stand up for yourself.”

As sentiments go, it was one of the sweeter ones, but also a testament to how far he’d come. He was done taking shit from anyone, but he had a feeling it would take a while getting used to the whole...confrontational angle of things. Staring down a suspect was worlds apart from dealing with someone’s open contempt.

Connor glanced up at the mistletoe, and just as he was about to ask if it was okay, Hank’s fingers curled under his chin and tilted it towards him. Hank kissed him with all the pride and fondness contained within those eyes, and come to think of it… He was fine.

One more kiss, two...three, and Connor stroked his fingertip down Hank’s strong jawline just to feel the rasp of his beard on his digital pad. “I should find Markus. Let you get back to work.”

Hank nodded, but there was a tension to his face that told Connor just as loud as words that he was about to say something just to make the moment last longer. “You could take the car. If you want?”

Sufficiently dry enough to face the not quite clement weather of the season, Connor ran his hand down Hank’s arm and slipped his fingers around his palm. “I’ll let you walk me to the car, while I consider my options.” Two could play that game, after all.

*

They talked on their way out of the building, perhaps dragging their feet just a little, the way new couples do when they near an inevitable separation. While Connor knew he could put off talking to Markus, he was ever the professional kind, who preferred to compartmentalize his job from his spare time. As soon as he could get things out of the way, they could have more time together - and there was still the small matter of his alter ego’s funereal arrangements, if it would come to that, and then he would have to rationalize his duty as a key witness for the prosecution. Would he testify (he would), and if/ _when_ he did, would it put the people he loved at risk? Quite possibly.

For the time being, they still had time to make plans, and at least for now it felt as though he’d have plenty of time to worry later. Today, he’d touch base with Jericho, and tonight he’d come back to Hank’s place (home), and he’d have a delivery waiting for him. A box full of treasures he’d picked out for himself, just for him, for the person he was and would grow into, for the individual he was still getting a sense of.

He squeezed Hank’s hand one last time and stole a kiss from his suddenly laughing mouth. They parted with promises of seeing each other that night, and each went his own, separate way. Hank went back to work, and Connor headed for the nearest bus stop.

Little did they know that a black car was parked a safe distance away, and in that car sat two men watching them with keen interest. Bosch at the wheel; Smythe in the passenger seat, split lip, broken nose and all.

***

_As the first rays of sunlight crept into the sleek open plan living space of the Barnes estate, the man in question sat at the breakfast table by the window, overlooking his vast, green lawn. Of course it was more gray than green this time of year, but for every morning that drenched the front lawn in sunshine Nicholas knew it was only a matter of time before he’d have an ocean of chlorophyll spreading out from the house to the wall surrounding it. Let others have their infinity pools and other such tokens of status and power. He was content with a pristine, manicured lawn._

_He swiped his holographic screen, flipping the digital page of his newsfeed. The silence was pierced by yet another scream from the basement. Barnes sipped his coffee, his ears perking at the sound of footsteps on the basement stairs._

_“Progress?”_

_“Not much, sir,” Bosch informed him in the unmistakable key of apology. “He insists he thought Stern ducked for cover, but, I quote ‘good riddance’.” Bosch stretched his hands, knuckles sounding dry and brittle like wood for the fire. “Said he’s just ‘_ _a two-bit tart who comes strutting into your nightclub like a bloody fairy’ and you ‘cream your pants’ the moment you lay eyes on his ‘two-faced arse’. Sorry about the phrasing, sir.”_

_“Thank you, Bosch. That’ll do.” Barnes finished his coffee, brought the cup to rinse and leave in the sink. While he had nothing against Bosch’s interrogation technique, it was a bit lacking. Bosch preferred to do things by the book, to err on the side of caution, keep things above board. All very commendable, but it meant that there were times such as these, that Barnes had to employ techniques of his own. He turned to the magnetic knife rack and picked out the meat cleaver, then went downstairs into the basement with Bosch in tow._

_The look on Smythe’s bruised and bloodied face was one of defiance, arrogance, a look that said he wasn’t going to tell anyone_ shit _. That all changed when he saw the large blade in Barnes’s hand. He pissed his pants, by the look and smell of it. Barnes didn’t blame him. His concerns lay elsewhere than the prospect of cleaning urine off the concrete floor. He stepped closer, bending at the waist to look his right hand man dead in the eye._

_“How come two days after I tell you not to worry about Stern’s past, he ends up dead? Three or four bullets fired, and only one--”_

_“I don’t know!”_

_“The shooter had a clear line of sight for a headshot, why didn’t he take it?! Why’s Stern the only one who got shot?”_

_“I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T CARE!”_

_“Are you behind this? WHY’D YOU TELL ME HE WAS SAFE?!”_

_“_ Because I had to get you out of there, that’s why! _Not hunkered down by a dead body! He’s gone! And good riddance, the bitch--”_

_Barnes held up his meat cleaver, looking between it and Smythe, who had a sudden change of heart about telling no one absolutely nothing._

“ _I THINK HE’S A COP!!!” Smythe howled, the loud noise going absolutely nowhere. The pros of having a professionally soundproofed basement were endless._

_Barnes arched his eyebrows, lowering his tool of choice. “A what?”_

_“That’s why I-- I ran a background check. Tried to find out everything I could about the bastard-- But--”_

_It earned him a backhanded slap. If there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate, it was lies. Barnes leaned in closer, positively snarling. “You don’t think I know when someone’s back pedaling? Nice going, you lying piece of shit. Prove it. Bosch, you go with him. Make him prove his point, or you take out the trash.”_

_Smythe just sat there, reduced to a whimpering mess. He knew what was in store for him, having been on the other side of the looking glass on many an occasion in the past. Bosch nodded, mumbling “Affirmative, Mr Barnes,” under his breath. Barnes patted the sobbing man’s cheek. “You prove it, you save yourself from a prolonged diving expedition in the river. We clear? There’s a good boy.”_

_*_

_It’s amazing what results come from the simple application of incentive. A bit of motivation is all it takes, and just a few hours later: results. Bosch texted him from Smythe’s place, updating him on the situation. They had a screendump taken from a Channel 16 news snippet from back in November, about a dead man being found in his dilapidated home after three weeks. A stabbing. Nothing interesting about it, except for the brief glimpse of a young man walking past the reporter just as he wrapped up his bit._

_His profile was unmistakable. Left hand side, beautiful. Barnes would recognize those beauty marks anywhere. He wore his hair longer back then, and a dark suit jacket, much like any other homicide detective…_

_Barnes tapped the phone to initiate a call. Bosch answered within seconds. “Why did we miss this?”_

_“I checked the police database, sir. There’s no one matching his physical description, and I ran a facial recognition scan and everything. This is all we got. Can’t be fresh from the Academy, they got no records of him either.”_

_“Then he’s an external recruit, or a consultant.” Although the prospects of that seemed flimsy at best._

_“Could be an actor,” Bosch suggested. “Method something.”_

_“Bullshit,” said Barnes. “No. He’s DPD. They must’ve learned to cover their tracks better. Kudos to them.”_

_There were murmurs of agreement from the other end, and Barnes stood there in his house, overlooking his soon to be perfect lawn. He was a simple man, with simple rules and simple needs. The most important rule wasn’t to obey him at any cost. No, the most important one was never to cross him, or you would pay the price._

_He breathed in, slow and deep, releasing the lungful of air with a new sense of clarity. There was only one course of action, and that was damage control. “Let’s assume this wasn’t an attempt on_ my _life, but a clever ploy on their part. You find out if it went horribly wrong and the DPD killed one of their own, or…if it was the performance of a lifetime. If he’s dead, find out who’s responsible. If he’s alive, you see to everyone he cares about. Partners, friends, pets, take care of them. I think our friend, Lieutenant Anderson, is a good place to start, don’t you? Suss out what he knows. Give him my best regards.”_

_“Yes, sir,” said Bosch._

_“Yes, gov’,” said Smythe, who had everything to gain from a bit of redemption. They wouldn’t disappoint. Barnes knew they wouldn’t dare._


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present time...well. 
> 
> The past has finally caught up with the present, time knitting itself into one cohesive unit.
> 
> Bosch and Smythe make their move with a deadly outcome, which in turn sends Connor on his most important mission to date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all of you who've stuck with me to the end - thank you! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have coming up with the story.
> 
> If you'd like updates on my other stories, or new ones, please follow me on twitter jericho @NdePlume1 :)

* * *

The skies above were overcast and bright at the same time, the afternoon clouds forming a thin, hazy grayish white film that covered absolutely everything. Just a week ago, everything had seemed cast in a dark gloom despite the longer, brighter days and the change in atmospheric pressure signaling the approach of spring. Now, not even the chill in the air slowed Connor down. More than anything he felt invigorated - like he’d had his batteries recharged, to use a euphemism. Fresh from the factory, newly assembled, not a single scratch or dent to him, nothing but blue skies to go with the artificial sunshine of his mind palace. Everything was bright and colorful. Everything he saw sent a spark flying inside him. The brief but thoughtful Christmas party, his successful game of chicken with Reed, the debriefing, the kisses under the mistletoe… He’d never felt so alive as he did now, coming to meet Markus in an old, abandoned building on the outskirts of a big lot overlooking a chapel and a small cemetery. Why Markus had picked this house as one of their safe spaces, Connor didn’t know. He had asked, but Markus didn’t tell him why.

They talked using their integrated wireless network, not wanting to be overheard. Markus had brought a gym bag full of clothes for him, which Connor changed into while updating him on the case against Barnes. It was imperative that he ended up behind bars, and his entire organization crumbled to dust without him, but being forewarned was being forearmed. Through Connor, Markus knew everything there was to know about Barnes and his associates, the clubs and restaurants tied to him, his goons. That he was passing on classified information regarding an ongoing investigation didn’t bother either of them in the slightest. Whether Barnes wanted to target fully operational androids or prey on the damaged ones, he’d have to find them first - and no Jericho android would ever set foot in or near one of his establishments, or go near anyone linked to him or his business. Markus had seen to it that the information got out, and fast. He’d do the same with these latest developments. There’s nothing quite like a nice pooling of resources, after all.

Business done away with, and the DPD issue sweats tucked into the gym bag, Markus held up one last thing between his thumb and forefinger. It was a tiny, circular blue disc with a hole cut into it - Connor’s LED.

_‘Thanks for holding onto it for me.’_

Markus’s eyes watched him closely as he replaced the diode at his temple. _‘Why keep that thing anyway?’_

Connor shrugged, neatening the loop of his thin scarf around its ends. It was dark gray, neat, not a hint of pattern to it. Practical, less likely to draw attention to him. Dull, in one word. _‘Because it’s part of who I am. It’s where I come from. I don’t want to forget that, or get rid of it just to blend in. I don’t want to blend in unless I have to. I can empathise with others who do, but it’s not for me.’_

 _‘Fair enough,’_ said Markus over their link. Connor pulled the matching knitted beanie over his head, not quite low enough to hide the LED. _'_ _What does Hank say about it?’_

The question caught him by surprise, sending his eyebrows into twin arches of puzzled query. _‘What does Hank have to do with it? It’s never come up. Why?’_

_‘Never? He seems like someone who’d have an opinion.’_

Connor hoisted the gym bag over his shoulder, and they started walking. Never staying in one place for too long was one of Connor’s security measures for the Jericho population. It applied to safehouses as well as meeting out in the open. Never stay more than two nights at the same place, always relocate at the first sign of trouble (any trouble), never assume you’re not being watched. It was a stressful way of life, but now it was more necessary than ever. _‘Not once. Not when I had it, not since I came back without it… I think--’_

 _‘What?’_ asked Markus, hands shoved into his jacket pocket as if to ward off the slight chill. They all had to be stage performers, these days. Three months undercover had drilled that into him like nothing else ever could have.

 _‘Don’t forget to breathe,’_ Connor cautioned him. Even if they were just walking down a street, they had to look the part. Markus pushed out suitably heated air through his nose, and Connor went on. _‘I think he’ll stand by me whether I wear it or not, and if anyone has a problem with it…’_

 _‘Then it’s their problem, not his?’_ Markus stifled a grin, squinting at the bright white sky. Looked like it was clearing up.

Connor smirked. _‘Exactly.’_

_‘He’s a good man. You should bring him over, some time. Let him meet the extended family.’_

And the smirk bloomed into a grin at the thought of Hank meeting the Jericho androids. _‘All ten thousand members of it.’_

They both burst out laughing, catching the eye of one or two surprised humans. “Alright,” said Markus, to diffuse the perceived strangeness of the situation. “I gotta run. It was good bumping into you, take care!”

“You too, bye!” Connor played along, and hurried on his way. If he walked, he could be at Hank’s house in five hours, but if he hopped onto a bus, he could be there in thirty, forty minutes. That meant he could do whatever he wanted for the rest of the evening. He could engage in a game of ‘window shopping’. He could stroll through one of the many parks of the city, he could find a bench to sit and watch people. He quite enjoyed watching people - their movements, their faces, their constant state of going somewhere. The possibilities seemed endless, and to finally come down from such a prolonged state of heightened stress made him realize just how wired he’d been these past weeks. The change was immeasurable.

Connor turned his head to the sky, dragging a deep breath into his artificial lungs, analyzing every component of the air right down to the atomic structures thereof. And breathed out.

It was good to be alive.

*

By eight o’clock Hank had been home all of five minutes in total, between shedding the trappings of the homicide detective (as in, it sure was nice to shrug out of his gun holster, roll the kinks out of his shoulders) and just be a neighbour and a dog owner taking his pup out for a nice, long walk. This was their moment, their own little slice of everyday tradition. No matter what time of day or night, Hank would take Sumo out for at least half an hour’s walk. He’d had too many years of borderline neglect. Not because Hank didn’t love his big pup, not because he didn’t care, but more often than not he had let depression manifest itself in rather more understated ways that Russian roulette. Like hiding away in the house, in the dark, too exhausted to deal with anything at all. Those days were over, and he was finally in a headspace that let him be the best human he could be for his dog. That meant not only caring for his dog, but taking care of himself. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, he was getting better. Even Sumo had changed in the months since the android revolution. These days he was more like an actual puppy, full of pent up energy just waiting to be released the moment Hank got home. His dog walker said much the same. One enormous bundle of energy, he was.

“You’ll never guess what Connor sent me, buddy,” Hank told Sumo as they walked briskly down the street. “I told you he’s been away, working. Well, part of that involved getting the attention of some pretty jaded people, the seen it all kinda people, and you know what he did?”

Sumo whuffed at him, mouth open on a dangling, happy tongue.

“He did this karaoke thing, with one of my favorite songs.”

Again, Sumo whuffed, absolutely stoked to find out.

“Yes! Superbeast! _And_ he sent me a recording!”

As far as Christmas presents went, this one was way up there with the best of them, and as Hank slipped his headphones on and brought up Connor’s attachment, he could feel his heart skip a beat. It didn’t really matter what he sounded like, because in any case he had to have sounded amazing or Barnes wouldn’t have noticed him, but what if it was _really_ fantastic? He couldn’t really imagine what he’d sound like, singing a _Rob Zombie_ classic, of all things. It could be unbelievably horrible, and it was Connor’s epic levels of giving no shits that caught Barnes’s eye. Anything’s possible. “Alright,” said Hank, “Here goes,” and pressed Play.

His low key fears were soothed the moment Connor’s voice filled his ears. He didn’t have to worry. He was _wrong_ , but in a good way, because Connor wasn’t just amazing, he was raw and unfiltered and borderline growling, and he was _killing it_ to such a degree that Hank found himself putting the track on repeat and giggling to himself like a little schoolgirl all the way home.

“Whodathunk, huh? My partner’s the baddest badass ya ever did see.”

What happened next was an unfortunate series of events, a string of what-ifs and if-onlies that could have been easily avoided if Hank hadn’t let his guard down for once. It didn’t even occur to him that the package that sat on his front porch wasn’t a case of a late delivery run, but had been put there by Barnes’s henchmen the moment he took the dog out. If only he hadn’t been listening to that song, blasting from his headphones, he would have heard Sumo’s low, warning rumble as he unlocked the door to let him in. He picked up the package, and just as he turned to step inside two hands slammed into his back and sent him flying into the wall. Headphones were knocked off as his head smacked into the wall, package and phone dropping to the floor. Survival instincts kicked in despite the sharp pain, black patches and flashes of light dancing before his eyes, obscuring his vision. He spun around, swinging at the assailant. His fist connected with an ear; they both stumbled further into the house. In the background, Sumo barked high pitched and loud, torn between fear and the instinct to protect his pack leader. There were two of them, and perhaps that was what tipped the scales for Hank’s loyal companion, who threw himself onto the armchair and from there he _lunged_ at one of the attackers. He might look like he was two-hundred and fifty pounds worth of fat and fluff, but like his human, Sumo was not to be underestimated.

Hank and the first one wrestled on the floor, and Hank was not about to let anyone kick his ass - he gave back as good as he got, and fuck _anyone_ who thought they could gain anything by ambushing him. He grabbed the guy’s head and cracked it onto the floor, kneed him in the liver-or-thereabouts, jabbed him in the kidney, slammed his forehead at his nose. He didn’t have a thick skull for nothing - but Bosch had the upper hand. Smythe howled, scared off by Sumo’s ferocious attacks. But… Bosch rolled away, not about to let a _pet_ intimidate him. He had a gun, and he had very specific instructions. _Kill everyone he cares about_ , in so many words.

“You stupid old man,” he hissed, holding Hank at gunpoint. “You _and_ the dog... I kill the mutt first, or you? You’re dead either way.”

In the distance, Hank could hear the loud screeching of tires, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everything felt like it was slowing down - Hank raised his hands, ready to plead for his life and Sumo’s (not the dog, please, he hasn’t done anything to you!), knowing full well his hands would do nothing to stop a bullet. But then-- Two pale hands came around Bosch’s head from behind, one at the chin, one just hinted at by his ear, and then-- A loud snapping, crackling noise brought time back to its normal speed. The thug collapsed to the floor, and behind him stood Connor. Eyes wide open and terrifying. Not terrified. Terrifying - but the cold, hard death in them evaporated the moment Connor saw the state of him.

“Hank!”

Connor dropped to his knees beside him on the floor, eyes scanning him for injuries and hands moving to his face. “I’m okay, I’m fine-- nothing broken,” he said. Hopped up on adrenaline, he couldn’t even feel his injuries. He must have some, but he couldn’t feel it. He just relaxed into Connor’s protective hug and pulled Sumo’s big head into a one armed hug.

“There’s two of them. Other guy ran.”

Connor nodded, lowering his eyes. “Yes, hello? I’d like to report a crime. Lieutenant Hank Anderson was assaulted in his residence by two armed men, one of which has fled the scene, possibly by car. I heard screeching tires down the street.”

...he was calling the cops. Of course he was. Hank smiled, barely noticing the little glint of bright red light at his temple, reflected against the edge of his knitted hat. Connor had this under control. He got it covered.

“Correct. 115 Michigan Drive. Sterling Heights. Please advise Homicide one of the assailants is dead.” Another nod. Connor was completely focused on the task at hand, or seemed that way. Hank could bet his left arm he had a hundred different tasks running at the same time, make that a thousand.

“I’m okay, buddy, shh,” he told Sumo, who tried to sprawl across his lap despite the fact Connor was in the way. They’d be okay. Of course they would. They had to be.

*

The first thing out of Collins’s mouth when he arrived at Hank’s door was “Holy cow!” and that sentiment seemed to follow him through his investigation of the scene. Hank sat in the kitchen with EMS checking him over, Connor relaying facts as he knew them. Sumo was glued to his human, pressing into his leg and visibly stressed if Hank hand to lift his hand from his side.

The gravity of the moment escaped absolutely no one present, to think one of their own had become a target, by none other than one of Nonstick Nick’s known associates, bodyguard extraordinaire Jens Bosch. It hit just a bit too close to home, knowing exactly the stunt they’d pulled trying to get Connor out of his grasp. Now it looked as though their bluff had been well and truly called. Cards on the table, do you raise the stakes or call it quits?

“Here,” Ben told Connor, pushing a digipad key into his hand. “You guys can’t stay here. I have a spare room, and whatever’s in the fridge is fair game. You know, until things settle down.”

The gesture was more than appreciated, but what were friends for if not giving you a hand up. “Thank you,” Connor whispered. “I mean it. If you ever need anything, Detective…”

“Don’t mention it. Just pack up the guys and head to my place, okay?”

Once the EMTs were done with Hank, Connor did just that, bundling them all up in the car, and drove to Collins’s place. Once there, he made sure his family was alright, safely tucked into the spare bed, human and dog both.

“Heyyy… Where do you think you’re going?”

Hank’s hand reached out for him, and though he knew there was no time, Connor sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted his hand to his lips. “I won’t be long. I need to touch base with Markus.”

Hank’s eyes practically shone in the light from the bedside lamp. All the lines around his forehead and eyes came out, and his eyebrows lowered with telltale skepticism. “You already did that. Today.”

It wasn’t easy to smile given the circumstances, but he had to reassure his partner or risk him tagging along. He needed Hank to stay put, stay relatively safe, far out of harm’s way. “That was before Nico sent his goons to your house, Hank. Please. This can’t wait until morning.”

Reluctant though he was, and still a touch wary, Hank relented with a firm squeeze to his hand. Whether he believed ‘touching base with Markus’ was the whole truth and nothing but, he didn’t say. Not outright. “Don’t do anything stupid. Come back in one piece.”

They knew each other too well, but that included knowing when to trust each other not to get themselves killed. They’d survived the revolution. This was peanuts, compared to that. He leaned in, kissing the corner of Hank’s mouth, careful to avoid the swelling. Bruised and battered, but still beautiful. The cracked nose, split lip, the gash to his brow… He’d have a black eye in the morning, but he would heal. He would live a long and happy life - Connor would see to that.

“Try to get some rest,” he told his love. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

*

As for Barnes, the day progressed the way it usually did, with conference calls and signing off on shipments and checking in with his franchise owners to make sure his product was passing quality controls. The little things, the day-to-day things, that’s what he liked about his enterprise. He was providing a service as well as keeping hundreds of good people employed, and he was nothing if not a generous employer. He had a special bonus in store for one of his newest recruits, a chemist who had figured out a way to make the end product much more potent. Bigger bang, meaning it wouldn’t take as much to get the same high, meaning they could experiment with cheaper blends. Dilute the product, up the price due to the shortage in blue blood, supply and demand… He could make a killing. And no one needed to know what happened to this or that ‘deviant’ that disappeared off the face of the earth. Take the Thirium, sell the components for scrap metal, dump what can’t be used or flipped. Easy. It was the best idea he’d had since he got into this business.

Over the course of the day he got updates from Bosch, saying they’d spotted Stern alive and well - and getting snuggly with the Lieutenant himself. Barnes trusted his men to settle the score for him, and went on with his day. Around seven he had another update, saying they were parked down the street from Anderson’s house. It was only a matter of time, by then. Anderson was a dead man, and he didn’t even know it yet. This fact pleased Barnes, for several reasons. He didn’t have anything against cops, as a rule, but he took pride in not being played. He had a reputation to uphold, and if word got out that a cop nestled his way into his sanctum sanctorum… Stern would learn his lesson, and Anderson would pay the price. Teach them both to pick their fights better next time, except Anderson wouldn’t get a next time. Sometimes that was the only way to ensure someone didn’t make the same mistake twice. You made sure they didn’t. You didn’t _let them_.

When he called it an early night a few hours later, not having heard back from Bosch or Smythe, it didn’t strike him as particularly odd. Homicide investigators were known to work all hours, so he wouldn’t be surprised if he got a call in the middle of the night saying the job was done. He went to sleep, feeling quite at ease with the state of the world, but woke up just after midnight to a pitch black room and the feeling he was being watched.

Maybe it was the weight of the mattress dipping slightly that caused him to stir, but it was the glowing red circle moving in the dark that took him from drowsy with sleep to wide awake in seconds.

“What the fuh--!”

“Shhh…” a familiar voice whispered, pressing a forefinger to his lips. “Hush now, angelcakes. Don’t make a sound, just listen.”

“S-- Stern?!”

“Just listen, and I will be gone,” Stern went on, as if sharing a confidence, a tasty morsel of information, a dark secret in a brightly lit room. Barnes’s heart beat so hard in his chest he could feel the pulse in his throat. How did he get in? What was he going to do?

“You and I are going to make a deal with each other,” said Stern, his finger sliding down the center of Barnes’s chin, down his throat, threatening and intimate at the same time.

“You went after the wrong man today. You do it again, I will kill you. You don’t go near him, or his dog, or his house, or anyone in his life or mine, past or present - and you get to live. How’s that for a bargain?”

His throat closed over, so dry it felt like double sided tape. “You can’t be serious! Who the fuck do you think you are? You come into _my house_ and tell _me_ what I can or can’t _do?!_ You lying piece of _shit!_ ”

Things escalated very quickly from there - the room lit up with the muzzle flare of a semi-automatic pistol, and Barnes barely had time to react. White hot, crushing pain in his right shoulder, so sharp it made his eyes burn - and Stern threw himself at the direction of the gun. It was Smythe, trying to save the day and failing spectacularly. Nothing had gone his way since the day Stern walked into their lives, and Smythe seemed determined to set things right. Blasting the headboard with as many bullets as he could, but none of them hit his moving target. Stern dodged every bullet and crashed into Smythe like a wrecking ball. It was like something taken straight out of the Matrix, but it gave Barnes more than enough time to fall out of the bed and turn the bedside table over in a bid to get to his own gun. He grabbed the revolver, rolled onto his back and fired all six rounds.

The lights came on.

Smythe stood there, held upright only by the chokehold of Stern’s slim arm. And Lou, the poor bastard, was absolutely perforated. Stern let him fall to the floor and strode over, to grab him by the neck and drag him over to the tall windows overlooking his front yard. His lawn, partially lit up by LED lights like little white dots to guide the way up the path to the front door.

“As I was saying,” Stern picked up where he left off, sounding very unlike himself. No more sweetness, no more banter, though the lack of bullshit stayed the same. “If you go after Lieutenant Anderson or anyone dear to him, I will end you. You kill innocent androids to fuel your drug distribution, I will hunt you down and destroy you. It ends today.”

Barnes realized with sudden horror that Smythe wasn’t the only one who was perforated. Only difference was, Stern was still upright. He just shot the guy several times and he’s still upright, barely bleeding at all. “Wh-who are you?!”

“I’m your conscience, Nico, darling,” Stern batted his lashes at him. “I know there’s parts of you that can do good, be considerate, even generous. So. From this day forward, whenever you’re about to do something bad, or something that might end up hurting other people, you’ll hear my voice telling you what will happen if you continue down that path. If you’re a clever boy, you’ll listen. If you don’t, you can expect another social call. I want you to be on your best behavior.”

“Bullshit! You and _what army?_ You don’t have the resources--!”

In hindsight, Barnes wished he hadn’t asked that question, because the look in Stern’s eyes was out of this world in the worst way possible.

“Do me a favor. Look out the window.”

There was nothing else he could do but look out the window at his pristine front yard, just as hundreds of androids came out from the shadows, filling his garden. Their LED circles swirled in the dark like fireflies, red and menacing, like Stern’s.

“I understand if it’s difficult for you to appreciate life,” said Stern with something like quiet compassion in his voice. “It’s all too easy to take it for granted. So many humans do. But, see, you _never_ want to take your own life for granted, Nico. Live each day as if it’s your last, that’s the way to do it. You never know when your time’s up, or who’s keeping tabs on you. Am I making myself clear?”

“Oh, _God_ …”

Connor gave him a smile, sweet and mild like the approaching springtime. “More like _Deus ex machina_. Think about that when you call the police. Oh, and Bosch won’t be reporting for duty anymore. He’s out of commission. Permanently.”

Barnes was left with the distinct impression that he either change his ways, or he’d have them changed for him. Permanently.

*

**_This is the KNC early morning news, and I am Rosanna Cartland, wishing you a lovely Thursday morning. We begin with the latest development in the ongoing saga of Nicholas Barnes, entrepreneur turned alleged puppetmaster of the biggest drug emporium in the Detroit area since the 1990s. Police were called to Barnes’s home in the early hours of this morning. While details are sketchy at this point in time, what we do know is that one of his closest associates was found dead in Barnes’s bedroom. Barnes himself has been taken to hospital. Exactly what happened remains unclear, and the police, as always, refuse to discuss an ongoing investigation. More on this story as it develops._ **

**_In other news..._ **

**_*_ **

The night passed him by in dark increments, second after second tick-tocking in the empty corners of his mind. Now that the adrenaline was out of his system his body ached. Every last little scrape and bruise throbbed in time with his heartbeat until his entire body was one big sore spot. Sleep escaped him, although not for fear of being targeted again. Hank knew it was incredibly unlikely for an assailant to return later the same night to finish the job, and even more unlikely for him to follow his victim to a new address and break in. All the same, he sat up in Ben’s spare bed, half reclined against a mound of pillows, Sumo at the foot of the bed like a giant hot water bottle. He wasn’t worried about Connor, although he _was_ , but not the way he would’ve been about anyone else. Whatever he was up to, Hank _knew_ he was the most capable guy for the job, and there was nothing he couldn’t get done that he set his mind to.

But he worried. Barnes and his ‘associates’ had figured them out, maybe not all the details but enough to make an attempt on his life. As long as Barnes was out there, so was the threat on his life. If he sent two goons this time, how many would he send next time? He wouldn’t stop until he’d made his point, and that involved Hank’s death. And Sumo’s.

His jaw moved on its own, its hinges aching with suppressed emotion. This silly dog was his baby, whether he liked to admit it or not. He’d been Cole’s best friend in the whole wide world, and they had mourned together, _survived_ together. Nothing could happen to Sumo, or Hank didn’t know what he’d do.

Then, the front door opened, and Hank froze despite himself. Sumo lifted his big head, nose twitching as he picked up the scent of someone familiar. His tail started wagging, and Hank could positively feel his shoulders sag with relief even before Connor’s welcome voice rang through the apartment.

“If you’re awake, it’s just me!”

“We’re awake!”

Sumo hopped off the bed, going to greet his favorite non-canine entity just as he poked his head in the door. “Hey! Hi, buddy! Who’s my puppy? Hang on, Sumo, hang on, I have to clean up, but then we can cuddle all you want, I promise.”

Heart swelling with emotion, Hank turned on the lamp on the bedside table, not one bit surprised to see Connor’s clothes covered in dark stains that could only be one thing. Blood.

“Before you say anything, I’m fine,” Connor told him, even going so far as to pull up all the several layers of his outfit to show a perfectly unmarred torso. “Status is all green, I promise.”

“Alright. I’m afraid to ask… Should I ask? Do I need to know?” He watched with a calm that even took him by surprise, as Connor looked at the bed, and the state of himself, and rather than sit on the bed itself he crouched beside it and took Hank’s outstretched hand.

“Markus helped me drive a point home. I bypassed Barnes’s home security system and woke him up for a...friendly chat.” Connor’s mouth curled into something that was far from a smile. It had nothing to do with amusement, or any of the joys of the world.

“Go on.”

“Smythe was there, tried to shoot me but shot Barnes instead. We fought, Barnes went for his own gun. Shots were fired. Most of them…”

“I see.” Hank didn’t know if he was finally ready to crash from the shock or out of sheer relief.

“Hence the blood,” Connor added, helpful as always.

“Yes. Right.”

Connor pressed a soft kiss to the back of his hand, and Hank said absolutely nothing about the bullet holes in his clothes. He was fine, or Connor wouldn’t say so. If he wanted to spare Hank the stress of knowing he was shot, Hank sure wouldn’t deny him the illusion. “Did you get your point across?” he asked instead, and his answer was a bright little glint in Connor’s warm brown eyes.

“Me, and five hundred Jericho androids. I called 911 to report gunshots at his address. Police are investigating it as we speak.”

Sumo yapped and whuffed at them, wanting in on the conversation, and everything else seemed terribly inconsequential. Maybe tomorrow he would worry about the fact Connor snapped a man’s neck to save his family, or that he B&E’d the residence of Nonstick Nick and (quite likely) threatened all kinds of nasty futures if he didn’t stop being such a shining example of human excrement. Right now, he was just happy they were all alive and well, and even if he’d been roughed up a bit it really didn’t matter.

“That’s my poodle,” he said, squeezing Connor’s hand. “Now go grab a shower and you can try out some of your new clothes when you’re done.”

That they were essentially cleaning up the evidence of Connor’s stunt, well. That wasn’t something either one of them were going to lose sleep over.

“I love you, Hank,” Connor whispered, and leaned in to kiss his bruised mouth. They were okay. They were going to be fine.

“I love you too, honey. Go on. I’ll be right here when you get back.”

It wasn’t as though he was going anywhere, but Hank had the strangest sense of having been here before. Not like he joked around earlier, about Connor and coffee stains making for a priceless combo, but more like the morgue. Cleaning out the inside of Connor’s torso, getting far too close to his beating heart, Connor had looked fragile in ways Hank didn’t know he could be. He’d always had a sense of how strong Connor was, even before he got to know him, but even the strongest intermetallic alloy in the world couldn’t take too much pressure or it would crack. Even if Connor looked unscathed, that was only skin deep. Tonight, Connor wore the hollowed out face of someone who had looked into the darkest parts of themselves and come back changed. There were many ways to create a monster, Hank knew from personal experience. One was deceptively easy: gaze into that darkness for too long and you grow used to it. It stops unsettling you, ceases to give you the creeps, make you sick to your stomach, until one day you can’t tell the difference between who you’ve become and who you used to be. Connor was nowhere near that point of no return, but he had caught a glimpse of the kind of person he could be, and it was enough to send him off kilter. 

He stayed a few seconds too long, just crouching and holding Hank’s hand, but then his smile was back, and he pushed to his feet. Hank listened to him moving about in the bathroom, listened to the spray of hot water and let it lull him to that middle ground between wakefulness and sleep where you can hear things perfectly well but your eyelids are too heavy to open. It changed with a warm hand on his cheek, and another kiss.

“Hank, baby?”

“Mnh?”

Connor’s voice was warm and comforting, much like an electric blanket. “How about we check out my clothes tomorrow? I’d rather just curl up under the blankets with you for a while.”

“Mhmmn…” From Hank’s point of view, it sounded like the best plan yet. The warm press of Connor’s lips to his cheek only sweetened the deal. It didn’t really matter that Ben’s guest bed wasn’t big enough for them, because somehow they made it work. Connor curled up next to him with his back to the wall and Sumo sprawled across the foot of the bed like it was made for him, leaving Hank bundled into the cuddliest, warmest snugglefest he could ever have hoped for. It was just what the doctor ordered, for all of them.

*

Morning came, like most other mornings, with a gradual brightening of the world outside. Hank woke up only to realize he wasn’t overheated, as was most often the case, especially with a big, fluffy dog to keep you warm at night. Connor was...pleasantly cool. Not cold, but...like one big temperature regulator thingamajig. The wonders of android love, perhaps.

“Better?” he asked, stretching out beside him, the light at his temple a calm, electric blue.

“Much.”

Hank took care of business in the bathroom while Connor set to the task of unpacking the individual items of his shopping spree, both of them comforted by the illusion of normalcy. They could get dressed, walk Sumo, have breakfast, and head back to the station like any other day, even if this was Ben’s home. The fact Hank’s house was most likely still labeled a crime scene… It didn’t bear thinking about, not for the time being. Hank showered and got dressed in the same stuff he wore after CSU did their thing, ie more of an outfit suitable for work. Proper pants, a t-shirt, one of his plain, striped shirts. Connor watched him get dressed like it was the best thing since sliced bread, but Hank had a feeling he was more excited about his own stuff than ogling anybody’s dad bod deluxe.

“Alright,” said Hank, more than a fair share eager, himself. Pants done, t-shirt on, that was enough modesty for both of them. “Let’s see what you got.”

Speaking of modest, Connor’s box of treasure was nothing like Hank had imagined. It was...very _beige_. Very practical. Two pants, dark gray and medium brown, one pair sturdy Oxford shoes. Three shirts with different collars, and one (1) light peacoat style jacket, all very basic and plain and not very striking. Not a single frill anywhere, nothing ornamental or elaborate or interesting. Just...nice fabrics in classic cuts. Far from his CyberLife uniform, yes, but also very far from the clothes he wore as Stern. His only concession to flair was a trio of necklaces in the form of different styles of chainlinks, brushed and shiny… Silver. Black leather. Nothing too striking, but neat.

It wasn’t until he came to the bottom of the box that Hank had a bit of an epiphany, because ‘modest’ was _not_ how he would describe his underwear. Lacey and colorful and fun, they had nothing to do with practicality and _everything_ to do with the eye catching, the downright pretty, the indulgent. Maybe Connor wasn’t quite ready to move away from the monotone greige-y shades for his outfits, but he had all the time in the world. The way Hank saw it, he could start at the undies and move his way outwards. One step at a time, that’d do it.

His own opinions aside, it wasn’t even about what he thought, but Connor. Blushing, happy Connor picking out his own things, his own outfit, adding layer by layer in a delightfully weird kind of reverse striptease. Bright red lace boxers that left nothing for the imagination, then the gray pants, and the forest green band collar shirt with motherofpearl-esque buttons, and the necklaces…

When you put it all together, it didn’t look plain at all. Hank grinned, couldn’t help himself, because the smile on Connor’s face was gloriously excited and happy. Maybe that had something to do with it, too. It was never about the clothes themselves, but the person wearing them, and this had nothing to do with Connor’s more flamboyant alter ego, but who _he_ wanted to be. “Be still my heart. Go check yourself out.”

“I don’t need a mirror to do that, Hank,” Connor noted, still blushing, as if Hank hadn’t caught him checking himself in every shiny surface in town already.

“I know. But do it anyway.”

For once, Hank was the one following Connor like a loyal puppy, but he didn’t really care. He could neaten the shirt at Connor’s shoulders, could brush his hands down his back, and they could both check him out in the mirror. Million bucks. _Easy_. “Wanna do something with the hair? Or makeup?”

The face looking at him from the mirror was one of surprise. “You think that’s appropriate?”

Hank arched his eyebrows, leaning his chin on Connor’s shoulder, hugging him from behind. “It’s not a big deal, is what I think. You’re not an employee, you don’t have to live and die by the DPD dress code. Try something out, see if it fits, and if you don’t like it, you don’t wear it.”

The look Connor gave him said Skeptical was his middle name. “That simple, huh?”

“You betcha,” purred Hank with all the conviction he possessed. And if/when it wasn’t, as the case may be, Hank would do his damnedest to change that.

*

Connor spent the entire ride to the station changing his hair from one preset to another, checking himself in the tiny mirror on the sun visor every two minutes until Hank had enough and glared daggers of excruciating death at him. He’d thought it would be fun to pick out a new look for himself, the way it had been picking out styles and accessories and whatnot for his alter ego, but the overall experience was nothing short of harrowing. This wasn’t life or death, this wasn’t a case of doing everything right the first time or his mission would fail, but his stress levels kept spiking the moment he thought he’d made his mind up. 

Makeup: no. But what if? 

Makeup! Done! Pretty! But what if it was too much?

Hair: DONE!

...but maybe that other style suited him better, what if this was too different, what if people would take one look at him and laugh?

“Connor.”

He shook his head, and thought better of the necklace too. “What?”

“You’ll be fine.”

Daring a glance at his partner, all Connor saw was Hank’s smiling, confident face. The traffic lights changed from yellow to green, and off they went. They were pulling up to the parking lot in minutes, and Connor was one big bundle of nerves. No necklace, no makeup, and his hair was practically the same as always but with a bit more curl. It felt like the biggest anticlimax in the history thereof - but Hank looked at him like he was the prettiest thing in the world.

“Gimme the necklace. I’ll wear it, how about that? Show everyone how it’s done.”

Connor shrugged, and handed over the bundled up chains, taken by surprise when Hank’s hand came up, brushing the backs of his fingers down the side of his face. It heated up almost immediately.

“Baby steps. Maybe next time, huh?”

Strange as it may seem, and this was something Connor was only just beginning to fully grasp, but between humans even _breathing_ was a means of communication. Dragging one deep breath into his lungs, Connor let it out with a sigh and a nod that somehow lent itself to a small smile. Hank nodded with complete understanding, pushing out a huff of air through his nose. Mirroring his smile, he brushed his cheek with his thumb, before nodding at the staff entrance and leading the way.

Case in point. What struck him as even stranger was how he found these little non-verbal communications far more reassuring than they should be. Maybe some things you just couldn’t get across with words.

*

Once inside, it was like any other day at the station. Early birds were either out on a case, or catching up on paperwork at their desks. Reed was nowhere in evidence, which made for a smoother ride for everyone concerned. Most importantly, no one made a big deal of Connor’s new look - either because, you know, it wasn’t such a big deal, or because it wasn’t too different from what you could expect of his tastes. Hank would bet it was the latter, but quietly hoped it was the former.

Collins was there with his traditional box of pastries, and a not so traditional thermos sitting on his desk. The bags under his eyes were unusually dark and puffy, and his mouth was unusually downturned. He brightened up considerably at the sight of his desk buddy.

“Heyyy, Heavyweight Hank is back in town! How’d ya get on? You did eat something, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hank grumbled, slapping Ben’s arm and sitting down heavily in his chair. “Slept like a baby and cleared out your fridge. Not so much, but it’s fine. Thanks.”

Connor rolled one of the desk chairs over and took a seat, fingers clasping between his spread knees. “Any news on Barnes?”

“Yeah, about that.” Collins grabbed the thermos and poured himself a cup of ginger lemon tea strong enough to clear out anyone’s sinuses by the smell of it. “The guy who attacked you was just the start of the show. Good grief, have I had a night and a half… 3 AM, 911 gets a call from Barnes himself saying he’s shot his associate, Llewellyn Smythe, in self defense. Says he’s been shot and is in need of medical attention, please send an ambulance.”

This was news to Hank, of course, who had absolutely nothing (™) to do with any of this (beside him, Connor gave his best concerned face). “...what the Hell?”

“Right?! And then, get this! He told his lawyer to take a hike! Full cooperation, wham, bam, thanks man.”

“Maybe,” Connor noted. “He’s had a sudden fit of conscience. I hear that happens to humans at the most unexpected of times. If you’ll excuse me, there’s something I want to discuss with the captain.”

Collins was none the wiser, just nodded and grinned. “If you want to double check your statement before you go? You can use my terminal.”

“Will do. Thank you, Detective.”

Connor exited stage right, leaving Hank and Ben to get back to work. Ben watched him go, a wistful look in his eye.

“Whaddaya know,” he murmured, turning to Hank with that same look. “He’s got good taste.”

Hank leaned back in his chair, stretching his spine, lacing his fingers behind his head. Intentionally misreading his friend. “N’aw, don’t make me blush.”

Collins wasn’t taking the bait. “I’m talking about the shirt, don’t go getting any ideas... Oh, to fit into a shirt like that again.” And therein lay the source of his mock melancholy. “Those were the days.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hank retorted with a well timed wink. “I have it on good authority bears are back in style.”

Collins perked up instantly. “What, _really?_ Alright. _Awesome_.”

They shared the grins of old friends getting back into the old routine. Hank swiveled his chair around and booted his terminal. “Rock that belly, Ben. If you got it, flaunt it.”

Collins groaned. “No one’s used that expression in over twenty years, Hank. Shut up and have a doughnut.”

Hank chuckled with a base note of mirthfulness sprinkled with his own brand of good humor. “ _You_ shut up and have a donut.”

*

Sitting in front of the captain’s desk, with Fowler himself leaned back in his chair and his fingers clasped across his chest, Connor wondered more than once if it was the right thing to do, to tell him everything. It’s why he’d asked for a moment, but even as he sat there spilling the proverbial beans, he couldn’t help but wonder if it hadn’t been better not to tell anything at all.

Of course he told Fowler everything, right down to the fact he roped some several hundred androids into his game of intimidation, and Fowler… Captain Fowler was not a happy camper. He cursed, over and over again, he refreshed his coffee from the machine behind his desk, he brushed his hand over his bald head, and he cursed yet again. In hindsight, it sure seemed as though both of them would have preferred if Connor had kept his mouth shut. They had Barnes’s confession, and Connor’s involvement only complicated matters, muddied the waters. Then again, if he didn’t tell the truth of what happened, everyone would be caught off guard if Barnes’s defense attorney brought it up in court.

“...fuck me sidways,” Fowler grunted under his breath, all out of steam.

Connor let his eyes cut to left,then right, both unsure and 100% certain how to respond at the same time. He didn’t like conflicting input. “I’d rather not, sir.”

The captain raised his eyebrows at him, but rather than snap he sipped his coffee and put it down very neatly next to his tablet. “Good. My apologies. That was out of line.”

Connor gave his very best line-faced nod, and Fowler returned it, telling him to tell Collins everything, and to include it in his statement. Leave nothing out, everything had to be in the report. Whether it came back to haunt them, they’d have to wait and see.

*

As it turned out, even the higher-ups of Detroit PD were suitably impressed with Connor’s results, whether he was an android or not, and let it be known he would be a welcome addition to any team under Fowler’s watch. That he had taken a bit of ill timed initiative, well, that they weren’t so impressed with - but Fowler swore by his character and the department opted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t technically affiliated with the police, but should he ever be part of any kind of operation, it was understood that he wouldn’t disregard the chain of command.

In the course of the week that followed, things were slowly returning to normal, or closer to it. Hank and Connor resumed their random routines, where Connor showed up every now and then and spent his time mostly with the Jericho androids. They’d watch the game at Hank’s house, or take Sumo for a walk, or even meet for lunch. ‘Lunch’ being code for Connor dragging Hank to the nearest hole in the wall or food truck any hour of the day. The weather was steadily improving, and towards the end of March you could really feel it. Spring really was in the air. On one such occasion, they were each leaning against the hood of Hank’s car, overlooking one of the parks of the city, everything glistening from a spot of spring rain. The entire park sparkled like a million diamonds. Hank chewed through his sandwich wrap, eyes forward. Squinting in the light, the sun bringing out his eyelashes. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Mhm,” answered Connor, hands in his pockets and mimicking Hank’s squint. “It’s an occupational hazard.”

Hank’s mouth curled into an almost-grin. “Don’t I know it. But, listen. I-- _Jesus_ \-- Alright.” Deep breath (it was the depth of it that told Connor he was gearing up for something big). “I want you in my life. In our living room, our kitchen, our bed, _our space_. Somewhere bright and open, with enormous windows. I don’t care if it’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere, or an apartment in downtown Detroit.”

Not just big, as it turned out. Gigantic. Connor turned his head faster than you can say ‘whiplash’. “What…? What about the house?” It wasn’t the most enthusiastic response, he realized, but it was all he could think of to say. He knew how much that house meant to Hank, and the thought that he was willing to let it go was nothing short of mind boggling. 

His partner didn’t mind, just turned to him with a slow push of air through his nose. He put the wrap back in the takeaway bag on the hood. “Yeah, I know. I don’t have anything keeping me there but memories, and they won’t go away if we move somewhere else.”

Connor could agree with him, so far. He nodded, hands reaching for Hank’s - for support, for something to keep him from floating away into the stratosphere.

“You deserve more than a dark old house infested with mold,” Hank insisted, the gentle quality of his observation echoed in his calm, raspy voice. “Let’s start somewhere fresh. A new beginning, for both of us.”

Connor’s mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. When nothing else came to mind, some sliver of rational processing kicked in. “It’s unwise to make big life decisions in conjunction with a crisis.”

“Crisis? What crisis?”

Good question. Connor blinked. Was he finding reasons not to for the sheer sake of argument? That didn’t make sense. “I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to say.”

“You’re such a weirdo, you know that? Is that a yes?”

“Takes one to know one. And…” He didn’t know what to say, other than yes. Apart from the things one could or should say for the sake of being rational, he really didn’t have any reason to reject the proposition. “Yes. But we have to start by fixing up the house, and see where we end up. You can’t expect to get anywhere near market value with a leaky roof and mold eating away at your bedroom.”

“Yeah? We’re doing this?” Hank’s smile matched the sun, and that told Connor all he needed to know. “All three of us. I’m sure Sumo will have plenty of things to say about our work ethics.”

Hank’s laughter rang through the air, bouncing off the buildings lining the street, and his hug was as firm and unguarded as ever. They kissed, and Hank kissed him again, and Connor wrapped his arm around him. There was nothing they couldn’t do, together. There’s no can’ts, because _everything_ was possible.

*

When it came to the wheels of justice, they were known to turn very slowly indeed. Not so in the case of Nicholas Barnes and his drug empire. He struck a deal with the DA’s office, and the case never went to trial. He was eventually convicted of manslaughter, as well as multiple charges of money laundering, drug manufacturing and distribution, his sentencing cut thanks to his full cooperation. That is, that he gave the DA everything she needed to bring down the entire organization, in exchange for being locked up in a high security facility. In the end, Connor’s hard work helped pave the way forward, and bring down the organization. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough to completely put a halt to Red Ice distribution, but it was enough to put a sizeable dent in it. It went without saying that some other player would try to fill the void, and surely someone else would come up with the same bright idea as Barnes, they were prepared. This time, the DPD had tens of thousands of ears to the ground with the help of the Jericho community.

While the question of android rights was still up in the air, and androids were yet to be considered citizens in any legal sense, this kind of human/android joining of forces could only serve to move things forward. Some even went so far as to say this was the biggest break since Lieutenant Anderson’s big bust some five years ago - more proof that interdepartmental cooperation was the way to go in the ongoing fight against drugs. As for the android population, it was only a matter of time before legislation would be passed. In the meantime, they knew the DPD were in their corner, and none were more vocal than Homicide, with Lieutenant Hank Anderson taking the lead.

***

_Three months later…_

***

It was a fairly normal night in early July. ‘Fairly normal’, as they had just settled into their very own shade of New Normal, in their apartment smack dab at the center of things in downtown Detroit. After weighing their options and narrowing down what they really wanted, they ended up in a spacious one bed/one bath apartment overlooking Grand Circus Park, of all places. Whether it was through fate or sheer dumb luck, they knew from the moment they stepped inside that it was the right place for them. Not too big, but wide open - from the moment you stepped inside to the big windows overlooking the park, leading onto their very own balcony. Kitchen and living area to the left of the entrance, the bedroom and bathroom to the right, it was like one big box of everything they needed. They didn’t need a huge amount of space, because they had the entire city at their doorstep, and the park right there for long games of fetch and running around with Sumo. Restaurants and theaters and the Detroit Opera House in walking distance. This move wasn’t just about finding a place to call their own, _their place_ , it was just as much about turning a new leaf for both of them. For Hank, it was a return to his old stomping ground, living amidst the hustle and bustle of the big city rather than in the burbs, and for Connor it was about staking a claim of his own. For both of them it came down to one thing: finding a home that suited them, rather than try to make Hank’s house work for them. They kept what they wanted from the house, and gave the rest to the red cross. Hank figured just because he hadn’t used something in ten years didn’t mean it was useless, and Connor couldn’t fault his logic.

They kept the armchair, because Sumo loved curling up in it despite it being a touch too small for his bulk, all the photo albums and the books, and Hank’s dad’s old vinyl collection, as well as the book shelf, plates and such from the kitchen, some pots and pans. They splurged on a new bed, because, as Connor put it, the old one wouldn’t have withstood all the action it was getting for much longer. Truer words were seldom spoken.

One warm night, they sat out on the balcony enjoying the last bit of sun, listening to the game in the background. Sumo had taken up position right by Connor’s side, resting his big head on his lap while treated to his daily required dose of ear scratches and cuddles. Hank was soaking up the sun from his recliner, eyes closed, a smile tugging at his mouth out of pure contentment. Connor’s 3D imaging grid kept Hank in his line of sight at all times, out of pure habit. There was a shiny, golden something in his pocket, and Connor had been dying to ask about it all day - but how to bring it up without letting on to the fact he was just a teensy bit obsessed, from a human perspective.

Fortunately for him, his question marks would soon be turned into exclamation points. Hank turned his head to face him, one eye squinting open to look at him. “Hey?”

“Yes?”

“Have a look at this, will ya?”

“Okay,” said Connor, playing his None the Wiser card like an absolute boss. He watched Hank reach into his pocket, taking out a tiny little box. The kind of gift box usually reserved for some form of jewelry, like earrings or...rings.

He took the box, heart beating faster by the second. Sumo gazed up at him like he was the best thing in the world, and why’d he stop scratching his head. “One moment, buddy, hang on,” Connor told him, opening the lid...finding a very small, very pink, very neatly folded sticky note where you’d normally find a ring.

“What’s this? Hank?”

“Oh, it’s something I’ve been wanting to ask.”

Connor dared a slow smile, arching his eyebrows and even going so far as to flutter his long, black eyelashes. “Yeah? Want me to show you its atomic structure?”

Hank grinned back at him. “You going to read it, or what?”

“Hank.”

“Spoilsport. Alright…” He sat up straighter, stretching his legs out across the wooden decking. Nudging Connor’s bare foot (toenails painted turquoise, for the season) with his besandal’d toe. “I was just going to say I want to be your hubby. The moment it’s legalized, we march down to City Hall. Deal?”

As carefree and easy as Hank said it, it still took Connor a moment to properly piece the audio input together. “‘Just’? ‘No big deal, let’s get married’?”

Hank’s grin just went bigger. His eyes positively sparkled in the sunset. “Yup. Easy.”

“Then...I’ll be your partner. Forever.”

“Uhuh.”

“But we don’t _need_ this. You’ve written me into your will. We share all expenses equally. We have insurance, I’m your emergency contact…”

Hank nodded. “I know, documents this, documents that...”

Slowly it dawned on him that it wasn’t just about legal documentation, or of ownership of property or insurance, anything like that - not _just_ about that. It was about claiming the right to be legally joined at the hip, the moment it was granted them. It wasn’t about _needing_ anything, not anything but each other, but about partaking in something that humans took for granted, a part of human society denied to them. And he was coming up with reasons to argue the point just for the sake of argument, or being a rational human being… When he had absolutely no reason to say no.

Connor nodded, his eyes tracking the sunlight bouncing off the folded paper. He unfolded it slowly, fold by fold, and what it said made his insides balloon with emotion. He felt like he was floating, weightless, footloose and fancy free - Hank’s writing spelling out three words that formed the most perfect combination.

_Let’s get rings._

It was all a bit-- sudden. The way it hit him. He nodded, and nodded again, and looked up from the tiny little box with the tiny little squiggles of love and hope. “I want you to be my husband, too.”

The grin on Hank’s face was like a flower in bloom, like the sunset and the sunrise, and the moon and the stars combined. “Then we’re doing this?”

“We’re getting rings.” Connor grinned, and reached out to take Hank’s hand. Hank did one better, coming over to seal the deal with a kiss.

When apart, they were powerhouses in their own right, but together? Together, they were unstoppable. They were family. Most importantly, they were _home_.

The End


End file.
